Sliders at Little Bigs

Brian Caswell and his partner Bill Floyd have lots to say about their latest venture, Little Bigs (2703 Montrose, 713-521-2447), which occupies the former location of the eclectic Ming's Chinese Restaurant on Montrose, just north of Westheimer. The two also own Reef. "We picked up the space two days before Hurricane Ike hit town," Caswell says. "I'm sure you can imagine how we felt."

They're still refining the Little Bigs concept. "Basically, we wanted to create fast, artisanal, high-quality sliders and serve specialty drinks and good wine at a reasonable price. Before we open the next one, in Hermann Park, later in the spring, we need to get a better handle on the tiger we have by the tail here." What makes his mini-burgers different? "The quality. We bake the buns on premise twice a day, we grind our own beef and we hand-cut the French fries," he says. "It's become late-night central," adds Floyd. "Since we're open until three a.m., we're getting lots of people in the trade coming in, late at night, after they get off work."

The slider concept has interesting origins. "Reef is a seafood restaurant, but one day, we had one regular customer who wanted a burger and, as we didn't have one on the menu, Brian took some rib eye and ground it up. We also had some yeast rolls that we used in another dish as well as some caramelized onions, and so we put it all together along with a spicy Sriracha rémoulade. When the customer told us it was the best hamburger he'd ever had, we decided to investigate this further. When we started selling 200 a day in a seafood place, we thought that maybe we were onto something." Funny how things develop.

The day Little Bigs opened for lunch, Dish wasn't surprised to see people in line — in fact, the line always seems never-ending, no matter the time of the day or night. There are three different sliders on the menu, one beef, one chicken and one mushroom and cheese. Our fave is the beef, by far, and we found the fries and the rémoulade addictive, to say the least. This is a great casual spot for a quick snack, or a great place just to hang out on the patio and enjoy free wi-fi.