Herand's Kitchen, the Persian-Mediterranean restaurant tucked inside a converted historic post office at 2601 Baylor St. in the Heights, has closed. Owner and chef Herand Tahmasian announced the closure on social media, saying only that the time was right to step away from the restaurant and begin a new chapter.
The announcement, posted Monday, did not explain what led to the decision or whether Tahmasian plans to open another restaurant, according to chron.com. Accounts of exactly how long Herand's Kitchen operated in Houston differ: chron.com described the run as less than two years, while whatnow.com put it at two years. Either way, the Baylor Street location's time in the Heights was brief.
Tahmasian first opened Herand's Kitchen in Glendale, California, in 2021, before relocating the restaurant and its kabobs to Texas in 2024. The move, the outlet reported, allowed him to be closer to his son and grandchildren in Houston. In the Heights, he recreated the restaurant's familiar mix of Persian and Greek dishes in a casual, counter-service setting with a patio, housed inside the neighborhood's historic post office building.
A Menu Built on Kabobs and Family Recipes
The Houston menu leaned on the same crowd-pleasers that built the restaurant's following in California, including kabobs, Greek salad and hummus, per the same account from whatnow.com. According to Community Impact, the restaurant also served saffron rice, tzatziki and falafels as part of its casual Persian and Mediterranean spread, and the owners described the restaurant's passion for sharing Armenian, Persian and Mediterranean flavors as something that grew into a special project for the Heights community.
When it opened, the space was sized for a steady crowd: the indoor dining room seated 67 people, with room for about 20 more on the patio, according to the Houston Chronicle. That same report traced Tahmasian's path to the restaurant business, noting he left London for Los Angeles in 2019 before launching the original Glendale location two years later.
Part of a Larger Wave of Closures
Herand's Kitchen's exit adds to a rough stretch for restaurants across Texas. An estimated 1,039 restaurants closed statewide during the first half of 2026, the highest total of any state or province, according to a report from restaurantdata.com. Nationally, the same report tallied roughly 8,171 estimated restaurant closures across the United States and Canada during that period, with independent restaurants — like Herand's Kitchen — accounting for nearly half of the total, or 3,918 closures. The report measures location closures rather than bankruptcies or company failures.
Houston itself topped the report's city-level closure figures for the first half of 2026, narrowly ahead of New York, though it ranked behind the New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, Chicago and Dallas-Fort Worth areas when closures were counted by broader metropolitan region. Community Impact noted that Herand's Kitchen had picked up multiple awards and recognitions during its run, including being named one of Houston's best new restaurants and one of the city's top Greek restaurants — accolades that make the closure sting a bit more for regulars in the Heights.
