Saba's Grill & Wok, the only kosher Chinese restaurant locals can find in Greater Houston, is packing up its wok stations and grill and moving a few doors down South Braeswood Boulevard. The counter-service spot has spent 10 years at 5413 South Braeswood Blvd. and is relocating to 5427 South Braeswood Blvd., the address that Old Hickory Inn Barbecue vacated earlier this year after 63 years in business. Owners say the restaurant will keep serving customers at both locations throughout the transition, with no closures planned.
Co-owner Natalie Cohen told Community Impact the move will bring a larger dining area, an updated kitchen, a patio, and a private rental room for special events, along with expanded catering capacity. Saba's Grill & Wok was created as a spin-off of the original Saba's restaurant, and its current spot will soon be filled by that sister eatery, which is moving from its longtime home at 9704 Fondren Road. Cohen said the goal is for the restaurant to feel like a one-stop shop for the community it serves.
The restaurant traces back to 1999, when Oren Cohen first took ownership of Saba's, with Saba's Grill & Wok itself opening in January 2016. Natalie Cohen manages front-of-house operations while her husband Oren handles behind-the-scenes duties for both restaurants. According to Community Impact, Natalie Cohen said customers have grown alongside the business over the years the family has spent serving Houston's Jewish community.
What's on the Menu, and What Saba's Means
The name Saba's Grill & Wok translates to grandfather in Hebrew, according to Community Impact's reporting, a nod to the family history behind the counter-service restaurant. The menu stretches well beyond traditional Israeli grill fare, per the restaurant's website, offering burgers, wraps, salads, Chinese dishes, and grilled steaks alongside a schnitzel plate of breaded fried chicken breast. A signature dish, Saba's Spicy, features gluten-free battered chicken, beef, or tofu tossed with broccoli and green onions and glazed in a tangy sweet-and-spicy sauce, prepared using the restaurant's open grilling and high-temperature wok stir-frying.
Saba's Grill & Wok holds dual kosher certification from the Houston Kashruth Association and Mehadrin Kashrus of Texas, qualifying it as a Glatt Kosher meat restaurant. That dual oversight reflects a broader regulatory reality in Southwest Houston's kosher dining scene: Mehadrin Kashrus of Texas is a Chabad Lubavitch-administered organization that enforces Hasidic Glatt Kosher standards, working alongside HKA, a local nonprofit certifying agency established more than 35 years ago. The stakes of that oversight became visible last year when Genesis Steakhouse on North Braeswood lost its HKA certification following an inspection dispute and reopened as the non-kosher Exodus Bar and Grill, according to Fox 26 Houston.
Meyerland's Kosher Food Scene Keeps Growing
Saba's Grill & Wok's expansion lands in a neighborhood that has long served as the heart of Houston's Jewish community. A 2016 demographic study by the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston found that Meyerland's ZIP code 77096 hosts 14% of the region's estimated 51,000 to 64,000 Jewish residents, according to the Houston Press. H-E-B anchored the area further in January 2020 when it opened a 95,000-square-foot Meyerland Market Plaza store featuring seven kosher production departments with full-time mashgiach supervision, as reported by Grocery Dive — a milestone Hoodline also covered when the store made its Meyerland debut.
The neighborhood's institutions have rebuilt aggressively since Hurricane Harvey's floodwaters tore through the area. The nearby Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center completed a $50 million renovation in 2023 that added the Cramer-Jacobs Family Culinary Studio, described as Houston's only kosher-style teaching kitchen, per Community Rec Magazine. Community engagement around certified kosher food also shows up each year at the Houston Kosher Chili Cookoff, hosted at Meyerland's Congregation Beth Yeshurun under HKA oversight and billed as the city's largest kosher culinary gathering, according to CultureMap Houston.
Houston's kosher infrastructure has also drawn national attention. In 2012, the Orthodox Union named Houston its inaugural destination for “Affordable Orthodox Living” initiatives, pointing to the city's lower cost of living compared with major East Coast markets and its established kosher network, per the Orthodox Union. Saba's Grill & Wok's owners say they aim to make kosher food more accessible to Houston residents who observe kosher dietary practices, fitting into that longer arc of growth even as the family-oriented restaurant keeps its counter-service roots intact.
Timeline for the Move
Saba's Grill & Wok expects to complete its relocation between the end of September and early October, moving one address down South Braeswood Boulevard into the space Old Hickory Inn left behind earlier this year. The shuffle is part of a broader wave of change along the corridor, which has also seen new concepts like Charcoal Korean BBQ and expansion plans from Pizaro's Pizza move into the neighborhood in recent months. For now, both Saba's locations remain open as the family works through the handoff, with Cohen framing the bigger space as a way to keep pace with a customer base that has grown alongside the business for a decade.
