At Watershed, patrons might first be attracted to its central bar, clad with a mosaic of cassette tapes and boasting 30 brews on tap, but hidden in plain sight is a massive open kitchen that represents the restaurant’s true calling.
“We’re chef driven but a very casual restaurant,” said Rick Costello, who has co-owned the Watershed restaurant and pub alongside his wife, Mercedes, since April 2019. Chef Christian Cullen is also an equity partner, bringing experience across several restaurants, including high-end French cuisine.
The menu offers scratch-made fare spanning German to continental to new American influences. A common item such as a Reuben sandwich can be done up with a side of dill-buttered spaetzle, a pasta made with fresh eggs found in several countries including southern Germany and central Europe. Smoking its own meats, cooking everything to order, and making its own sauces and dressings in-house shape the culinary philosophy.
Costello said the focus for Watershed remains threefold: offering high-quality food; providing good, quick service; and being neighborhood-oriented—an emphasis that the ownership trio had in mind when picking its location between West Bellfort Avenue and South Post Oak Road.
