Finn Hall, one of several food halls coming to downtown Houston, has secured another restaurant tenant.
Max Gonzalez, who owns Catalina Coffee at 2201 Washington Ave. and Amaya Roasting Co., will debut a new concept called Amaya Coffee at Finn Hall, according to a press release. The coffee shop will join Goode Co. Taqueria, Low Tide, Mr. Nice Pie, Dish Society and Mala Sichuan inside the 20,000-square-foot project at 712 Main St. in The Jones on Main’s JPMorgan Chase & Co. Building.
Amaya Coffee will offer the same pastries and beverages — coffees, lattes, house-made syrups and hot-specialty teas — served at Catalina Coffee with a new addition: an affogato, which is an Italian coffee-based dessert, that will feature Fat Cat Creamery’s Amaya Coffee and Cream ice cream flavor topped with espresso.
All coffee beverages from Amaya Coffee will be made from Amaya Roasting Co. beans, per the release. The concept was named after Gonzalez’s mother’s maiden name.
The national food hall trend inspired Gonzalez to join the upcoming project, but he was also drawn to Finn Hall because of The Jones on Main’s architecture, per the release.
“The JPMorgan Chase & Co. Building is one of the most important and significant Art Deco buildings in downtown Houston,” Gonzalez said in the release. “The building is such a unique space, especially for a food hall. When the opportunity to join Finn Hall came to us, we felt now was the right time to join the growing movement of quality-focused businesses opening in downtown Houston.”
When Finn Hall is complete in mid-2018, it will have 10 food outlets, a craft-beer and curated-wine bar, an art-deco cocktail lounge and private event spaces. The hall is locally operated by Finn Hall Management. Austin-based Oz Rey LLC is the developer of the project, and the general contractor is Houston-based David E. Harvey Builders Inc., whose CEO was named the lifetime achievement winner of Houston Business Journal’s 2018 Landmark Awards.
The food hall is part of a major renovation project that Houston-based Midway Cos. and Lionstone Investments began in April 2016 that also rebranded the towers at 708 Main and 712 Main as The Jones on Main. However, 712 Main also retained the JPMorgan Chase & Co. Building name, which stems from its lead tenant.
Other food hall concepts are popping up all over downtown Houston, including:
- Conservatory Underground Beer Garden & Food Hall, at 1010 Prairie St., which opened in 2016.
- Bravery Chef Hall, at 409 Travis St. inside Aris Market Square, which is expected to open this summer.
- Lyric Market, at 411 Smith St., which is projected to open this fall on the ground floor of the new Lyric Centre parking garage.
- Skanska USA Commercial Development’s new 35-story Capitol Tower at 811 Rusk St. will also open “a culinary market with fresh chef-driven concepts” when it completes construction in 2019.