Shop by craft
Best of Houston; search or filter for all 15
Houston, Texas
Araya is a family-run chocolate maker with a Houston storefront and a production lab in nearby Katy, working single-origin Venezuelan chocolate into bonbons, bars and truffles by hand. The shop takes on large custom orders, from wedding favors to holiday gift boxes, alongside its everyday case.
Best for Handcrafted single-origin chocolate
Montrose, Houston, Texas
Archway Gallery has been owned and run by its own member artists since 1976, currently around three dozen Houston-area painters, printmakers and sculptors who staff and curate the space themselves. It's one of Houston's longest-running artist cooperatives, holding regular exhibitions and figure-drawing sessions alongside sales.
Best for Houston artist-cooperative original art
EaDo, Houston, Texas
Blackwater has roasted single-origin coffee from its EaDo location since 2005, selling seasonal small-batch beans alongside a mobile bar it runs for weddings and corporate events around Houston. The roastery also supplies and services espresso equipment for downtown Houston offices and cafes.
Best for Seasonal single-origin Houston coffee since 2005
Houston, Texas
Bravado Spice makes small-batch hot sauces out of Houston, best known for pairing ghost and reaper peppers with miso in what it calls the world's first aka miso hot sauce. The company sells its bold, umami-leaning sauces and seasonings direct from its own site as well as area retailers.
Best for Small-batch Houston hot sauce
Greater Heights, Houston, Texas
El Bolillo has baked Mexican pan dulce and pan salado from a Greater Heights storefront since 1998, growing from one neighborhood shop into a Houston-wide bakery while keeping everything made fresh daily by hand. The shop turns out roughly 150 varieties of sweet and savory bread alongside custom cakes.
Best for Mexican pan dulce and pan salado
Houston, Texas
Goode Co. has smoked brisket, sausage and ribs for Houston since 1977, still run by the founding family with a secret spice blend and scratch-made sauce. The original Kirby Drive smokehouse, with its wall of mounted deer heads and license plates, remains the flagship location.
Best for Family-run Texas barbecue since 1977
Houston / Texas / Online
Houston's own since 1883 — America's great family shirtmaker, cutting bespoke and RTW in its Texas workroom.
Best for American bespoke shirts, made in Houston.
Houston Heights, Houston, Texas
Houston Dairymaids sells cheese exclusively from Texas artisan makers out of a 1930s former Sicilian grocery in the Heights, favoring unpasteurized-milk wheels and hosting tastings that connect shoppers to the cheesemakers directly. Founder Lindsey Schechter built the shop around introducing Houston to in-state producers rather than importing internationally.
Best for Texas artisan cheese
Houston, Texas
James Coney Island has served its secret-recipe chili dogs since 1923, when Greek immigrant brothers Tom and James Papadakis opened a hot dog stand at Walker and Main; a coin flip decided whose name went on the sign. Six local investors bought the chain in 1990 specifically to keep it privately held and Houston-based.
Best for Century-old Houston chili dogs
Garden Oaks, Houston, Texas
Moeller's Bakery has baked in Houston since 1930, when Gus Moeller and his brother Raymond opened on Almeda Road after learning the trade in New Braunfels. Now at 4201 Bellaire Boulevard, it still uses Gus's original recipes without additives and a pre-war oven with rotating shelves. The family's third generation runs the counter, and petit fours are still finished by hand.
Best for Hand-finished petit fours and cakes from Gus Moeller's 1930 recipes
Moeller's Bakery has baked in Houston since 1930. Goswin Moeller, known as Gus, opened it that year with his brother Raymond after the two learned their trade at a bakery in New Braunfels, Texas. The first shop stood on Almeda Road. The business has moved twice since, settling at 4201 Bellaire Boulevard on the south side of Bellaire. Gus's wife Lucille worked the front and handed cookies to children while their mothers shopped, a habit older customers still remember. The recipes in use today are Gus Moeller's own from 1930, made without additives or preservatives, and the bakery still bakes in the same pre-war oven with rotating shelves, in daily use since 1942. Their son D.W. Moeller took over in 1980 and made every cake himself, while his wife Theresa ran the office, and their son Eric now keeps the old oven running with custom-made parts. Petit fours are cut and iced by hand, then decorated by hand. The counter also holds pastries and cakes as well as cookies and pies and breads. The family has considered a second location and decided against it, to keep the connection with its neighbourhood.
Houston Heights, Houston, Texas
Pizzitola's traces back to 1935, when John and Leila Davis opened it as Shepherd Drive BBQ with deep roots in Houston's Black barbecue tradition before it later took the Pizzitola name. The pit still turns out ribs and a signature beef shank plate at the same Houston Heights address.
Best for Historic 1935 Houston barbecue pit
East End, Houston, Texas
Republic Boot Co. builds custom cowboy boots and leather goods out of a storefront on East 11th Street in Houston's East End, fitting customers for made-to-order pairs rather than stocking mass sizing. The shop rounds out its boots with leather bags, performance shirts and other rodeo-season staples.
Best for Custom cowboy boots and leather goods
2012 Peden Street, Houston, Texas
Revolver Galería is a contemporary art gallery whose own site gives its space as 2012 Peden Street in Houston, Texas. It represents Latin American artists, among them Alberto Borea, Elena Dahn and Jorge Eielson, and its branding names Peru as its origin.
Best for Gallery
Houston, Texas
Texas Tamale Company started as a Houston street cart selling lard-free tamales made from scratch recipes, then grew into a mail-order company shipping 'Survival Kits' to homesick Texans nationwide. It's still based in Houston, on Hillcroft Street, making gourmet tamales by hand.
Best for Gourmet Houston-made tamales
Meyerland, Houston, Texas
Three Brothers Bakery has run continuously since 1949, founded by Holocaust survivors Sigmund and Rosa Slovin, and is now on its fourth generation of family ownership. The Houston institution is best known for its kolaches, challah and rye bread, and it has rebuilt from three separate floods without closing for good.
Best for Multi-generation Jewish-Texan bakery
Neighbourhood walks
Area names come from each shop’s published address record; ORBIS does not invent neighbourhoods.
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