Inside The Rouxpour Restaurant and Bar in Sugar Land’s Town Square, 10-foot-tall photographs hang from exposed brick walls while sparkling chandeliers dangle from the dining room ceiling, evoking the festive feel of New Orleans and its food.
The Rouxpour features New Orleans-inspired cuisine that is not just Creole or Cajun food, but is a combination of Spanish and French cooking traditions as well.
The menu carries myriad seafood choices but also features steaks, poultry and pasta dishes. Naturally there are the NOLA classics, such as gumbo, po'boys and, of course, crawfish.
The restaurant serves brunch every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. with live jazz. A separate room with seating for 75 can host private events and parties, and two outdoor patios seat over 100 diners.
The Rouxpour is the creation of business partners Lincoln Ward and Mack McDonald. McDonald is a native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and when he moved to Texas for work, McDonald brought with him his taste for his hometown’s cooking.
Ward, 44, has spent all but four years of his working life in the restaurant business. He got his first job in the restaurant industry at age 17 as a dishwasher at Captain’s Half Shell Oyster Bar in Houston.
“I’ve held every position in a restaurant between now and back then,” Ward said. “I’ve always enjoyed serving people for some reason. It doesn’t seem like work to me.”
One of the biggest yearly events at The Rouxpour is Fat Tuesday, or Shrove Tuesday, the final celebration of the Mardi Gras season in New Orleans. This year’s celebration falls on Feb. 28, and The Rouxpour will feature live jazz and jump blues, a photo booth and face painting.
In addition, a truck will show up outside the restaurant pulling a trailer that will carry three enormous pots for boiling crawfish. At its daylong Fat Tuesday celebration, the restaurant will serve about 1,000 of the shellfish, Ward said.
So many crawfish are cooked for the event that the crustaceans need to be lowered into the pots with help from mechanical winches.
Looking ahead with respect to building the business, Ward and McDonald opened a second Rouxpour in Friendswood in 2016, and they are considering a third location, Ward said.
