After more than three decades on Hillcroft, Abdallah’s is back, this time in a compact Lower Heights storefront that trades full-service dining for quick counter orders while hanging onto the family recipes that made it a classic. Led by Susan Abdallah Hage and her husband, Fares Hage, the relaunch keeps the bakery’s signature pita and pastries, trims the operation for a faster pace, and stretches across breakfast, lunch and dinner for both old regulars and curious new neighbors.
The menu sticks with longtime staples such as hand-rolled grape leaves, falafel, kibbeh balls and that pillowy, fresh-fired pita, even as the service model shifts to a streamlined counter setup. As reported by the Houston Chronicle, the new cafe covers all three dayparts and sits about 10 miles from the original Hillcroft location. The Chronicle framed the comeback as a careful reimagining rather than a full-on reinvention, which is exactly the line the family seems intent on walking.
Family roots and recipes
The business traces back to brothers Elias and George Abdallah, who started baking in a backyard in 1976 before opening the Hillcroft storefront that would anchor the family enterprise for decades. According to the restaurant’s website, Abdallah’s still bottles olive oil from the family’s groves in Lebanon and builds a rotating daily menu around seasonal produce. Susan and Fares now run the cafe day to day and say they are sticking with the same family techniques for pita, pastries and specialty platters that regulars remember.
From Hillcroft to the Heights
The Hillcroft shop closed in January 2024, after roughly 35 years, when the family opted not to renew the lease in the wake of shifting post-pandemic customer patterns. As the Houston Chronicle reported at the time, Susan Abdallah Hage called walking away from Hillcroft “really a tough decision” and said the Heights offered a better match for the foot traffic the cafe now needs. City permitting slowed what they had hoped would be a quick reopening, but the family ultimately surfaced in the Lower Heights with a scaled-down cafe format.
Opening and the new spot
Local coverage indicates the cafe quietly reopened in early 2025 inside a Lower Heights shopping center, with a patio and a simpler service flow that keeps things moving. Per Community Impact, the new location began welcoming customers in February and lists its address and hours on the restaurant’s site. The move keeps the Abdallah name in Houston’s dining conversation even as the business trims its footprint…