After spending her youth as a lonely “military brat,” Penny Henderson wanted to grow up and get married, have a lot of kids and spend time making and enjoying big dinners with the whole family.

Despite never cooking a single thing before she was married, she committed fully to her vision and learned everything she could about cooking while raising five children.

“I learned how to make gumbo over the phone from my friend. She walked me through it saying, ‘This is how you make a roux; this is what you need to buy,’ ” Henderson said recently. “So, there’s not a story of me cooking in the kitchen with my grandma and all that. It was literally just me trying to figure out how to feed all those kids!”

And once you know the strategy behind her cooking is to feed a whole family day-in and day-out, you understand why everything at her new restaurant, The Quarter Kitchen + Bar in the Hobby Area District, is so tasty and the portions are huge.

The restaurant, inside the Hobby Airport Holiday Inn at 8611 Airport Blvd., held its grand opening on Sept. 26 and is open for breakfast and dinner (closed for lunch) seven days a week.

The menu is full of New Orleans staples based heavily on fried fish and seafood. At the top of the menu, the “Big Daddy Feast” is golden fried catfish on a mound of dirty rice, covered with crawfish etouffee and crowned with fried crawfish tails and grilled shrimp! Laissez les bons temps rouler!

The “Mardi Gras Pastabilities” is just as decadent with grilled andouille sausage, chicken breast, shrimp, mushrooms and tri-color peppers, tossed in a creamy base sprinkled with parmesan and grilled peppers.

No Louisiana restaurant would be complete without po-boys, and the Peacemaker po-boy is the signature sandwich with fried shrimp, crawfish tails and oysters on fully-dressed French bread.

If you’re looking for something a little smaller, it’s still going to be tasty, like gumbo or mac & cheese or chicken wings that are flash-crisped and tossed in sauce, with carrot and celery sticks and French fries.

Penny Henderson (in apron) and staff

Brunch delights include “Shrimp & Grits Shenanigans” which is a base of smooth, creamy grits with New Orleans-style BBQ shrimp, tri-color peppers and lemon butter.

True to form, there is also a platter of chicken and waffles, which is crispy chicken nestled with fluffy waffles topped with fruit and powdered sugar.

The Quarter Kitchen + Bar is Henderson’s second restaurant venture. But, hailing from Lake Charles, La., Henderson did not set out to run restaurants. She had a long and accomplished career as an executive in the medical field and was enjoying her job when she was transferred to Memphis.

Coincidentally, an injury sidelined her about the same time that her son, Blake, was also recovering from an injury as a personal trainer.

Mother and son spent weeks together talking about their future. Her cooking had always made people’s mouths water, so they thought about opening a small restaurant together.

“We just Googled ‘how to open a restaurant’ and then I picked my kids’ five favorite dishes, and we did it,” Henderson said. “And it was super successful. It was in a neighborhood that was in a (Memphis) historic district, so we had just really lovely, lovely customers.”

As COVID crippled many restaurants in 2020, business fell off at about the same time that Henderson’s mother in Lake Charles fell into poor health. So Henderson decided to close the Memphis restaurant and make Houston her home base.

Her son, Blake, and his wife, Vanessa, came with her when she moved in December, and since then, they have been working together to open the Quarter with partner Tamekia Cotright.

The restaurant’s unobtrusive décor has clean lines and separate seating sections. There are even long tables that can seat a family with five kids. Bright TV screens over the bar keep the atmosphere festive.

These days Blake cooks breakfast, Penny works dinner and Vanessa is behind the bar, which is steadily gaining a following of regulars. And to get into that New Orleans state of mind, you’re going to want to try the “Hurricane Penny.”

The Quarter Kitchen + Bar at Holiday Inn Houston Hobby Airport Hotel
8611 Airport Blvd.
Houston, TX 77061

Hours:
6 a.m. to 10 a.m and 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. every day
Bar opens at 5 p.m.

— By Brian Rogers