In the old days, there were rock stars. Chuck Berry. Elvis. John, Paul, George and Ringo. You knew they were rock stars because they were cool and they were musicians.

There were musicians at last night’s H-town Welcome Wagon, the opening event of this year’s three-day Southern Smoke Festival. A showcase stage was erected for them, right next to historic Lott Hall in Hermann Park. But, the night’s true rock stars weren’t the featured music artists. They were the guest chefs, from throughout Houston and across the country, who joined the event to display their culinary expertise in support of fellow food and beverage industry workers.

Southern Smoke Foundation is a non-profit designed to create a safety net for F&B industry workers in crisis by assisting with health care costs, providing access to free mental health care, offering financial aid to families in need - especially single parent households — and more. Houston’s own rock star chef, Chris Shepherd, started the organization in 2015 after learning his friend and former sommelier, Antonio Gianola, had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. By the following year, Southern Smoke Foundation had donated more than $750,000 to the MS Society and in 2017 it shifted focus to assist a broader spectrum of industry workers. Last year, the non-profit distributed nearly $3.5 million to struggling food industry workers worldwide.

Those initiatives are funded in part by the festival, which runs through Sunday this year with three days of food-centric gatherings. Today’s sold-out event is at The Houstonian but tickets remain for tomorrow’s East Downtown Throwdown near 8th Wonder Brewery in EaDo. Every good party needs music and this year, Southern Smoke Festival booked some extraordinary talent, like New Orleans R&B/pop artist Maggie Belle, Houston’s own Disko Cowboy and Austin roots rocker Shakey Graves. They’re all slated for the Throwdown event on Sunday.

The opening night’s lineup featured Texas treasure Robert Ellis, Austin up-and-comers Me Nd Adam and local favorite DJ G-Funk. Because the event is food-forward, it was a tough gig. There were lots of distractions, like a 60-day dry aged short rib marinated in fish caramel served with smoked tallow cornbread and bourbon honey tallow butter. Or, a Maine toro sashimi, topped with puffed rice and drizzled with aged garlic ponzu.

The music rock stars were game, though.

“I feel it in the air tonight my friends, and I smell something delicious in the air, too,” said Me Nd Adam vocalist Adam Walker. “I feel that we have the makings of something really fucking special right now. I feel it. I know I’m gonna turn everyone here into a party, I know what I’m gonna do, it’s gonna happen. Whether you like it or not we’re gonna have a good time tonight my friends!”

Walker is an engaging front man and he and his cohort Vince Winik did generate some excitement with originals like “Something Better” and “Living the Dream,” which Walker introduced as a song about going to jail. They mixed in some covers – “Can’t Help Falling in Love” and Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark.”

Booths featuring foods from the night’s culinary rock stars lined the audience area and dancing in her booth to Adam Nd Me was Gail Simmons. Simmons is a prime example of a culinary rock star, a celebrity food expert, writer and TV personality perhaps best known for her role as a permanent judge on BRAVO’s Top Chef. She said she committed to the festival because she would “lay down in the road” for Shepherd and his wife, Houston food publicist and Southern Smoke Foundation co-founder Lindsey Brown. Simmons also knows how key the organization’s efforts have been recently.


“The last two and a half years the entire industry has been in crisis and we’re not out of it yet,” Simmons said. “Just because COVID may be sort of mostly in the rear-view mirror doesn’t mean that restaurants are back on their feet. It doesn’t mean that restaurant workers have the benefits and the support that they need to make a living and to take care of their families, not to mention all of the natural disasters that occur all of the time. And we don’t know what’s coming next.

“The thing to remember is this is an industry where we take care of each other, and that’s just how it goes,” she said.

Those sentiments were echoed by Paola Velez, an acclaimed, James Beard Award nominated pastry chef whose rising star and rock star status have been affirmed by taking up social causes, particularly via Bakers Against Racism, the social community she co-founded to connect culinary creatives to fight racism.

“I joined this event because I love Chef Chris, I love Houston and I think that it’s so important for the restaurant industry to band together, come together and unite in a unified force to support each other because it’s been a long two years and I think we all need a hug, a warm plate and a little bit of help,” she said.

Music is another way to show love and one artist on hand who knows both music and food worlds is Bun B. The legendary UGK front man launched Trill Burgers, recently dubbed America’s best burger.


“I’ve been a part of supporting Southern Smoke Foundation since its inception. I’ve been a part of almost every festival that Chris has thrown but that’s always been from a music aspect, contributing with my art,” he said. “This is my first year as a vendor. It’s an amazing opportunity for us as a young company to make sure that we’re supportive of the culinary community in Houston. We’re proud to be here, proud to stand with Chris Shepherd and Southern Smoke Foundation and really happy to present this burger to people, as always.”

Bun didn’t plan on presenting music at the event, but he did. As long lines formed to try his food, he teamed with the show opener DJ G-Funk to offer the crowd some UGK favorites like “Big Pimpin’” and “Int’l Players Anthem”.

“I apologize to the acts coming up, I just took over the stage right quick,” he said. “I just feel so good, man, it feels so good to see all these people out here supporting this culinary community, supporting Chris, because we all love Chris Shepherd. He does so many great things for the city, and he’s doing this from the bottom of his heart, it’s very generous and authentic, so we want to support that in every way that we can.”

“Texas Piano Man” Robert Ellis was headed for the stage when Bun turned up. Once onstage Ellis quipped, “It's not often that you get Bun B to open up for you.” Flanked by Geoffrey Muller and Will Van Horn, Ellis delivered a set to match the easy breeze of the evening with songs like “Passive Aggressive,” “California,” and “Topo Chico,” one the foodies could really appreciate.

Ellis’s wry, elegantly written songs must have caught the attention of Mason Hereford. A culinary rock star who resembles a music rock star, the James Beard Award nominee’s New Orleans restaurant, Turkey and the Wolf, was Bon Appetit’s Best New American Restaurant in 2017. Food & Wine and GQ have dubbed it one of the most important restaurants of the decade. He said his late father shaped his music tastes with favorite artists like Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt, artists not too far aesthetically from Ellis.


“New Orleans is all about music and food. Do I love them both? Yes. Is my food musical? Probably not?” he said though the smoked collard greens melt he offered– served on soft rye bread with Swiss cheese and a tasty slaw – made tastebuds sing.

Hereford and his crew were all-out rock stars, shot-gunning 8th Wonder brews between casual chats with foodies. He said the restaurant was scheduled to attend the festival when COVID struck so it was their first time on the grounds.

“We’re excited to be here because it draws such an amazing group of chefs and we’re all here to kind of take care of our own people, you know?"

Hereford described the service industry as “kind of a wild place” and noted, “the fact that health care has to be tied to employment is very problematic and a lot of people can’t get it either way and a lot of small restaurants, whatever they’re spending on the health care of their staff is like the difference sometimes in their ability to even sustain. It’s incredible to have a program like this that can reach out to people in the service industry that aren’t necessarily lucky enough to be in one of those restaurants that has the privilege of offering health care.”

The music was nice, it always is at a festival, but the night’s rock stars were the high-profile culinary masterminds on hand, TV and social media's food superstars. There's none bigger in Houston than Chris Shepherd. Near the end of the evening he spoke passionately about the foundation’s work and what it still hopes to accomplish.

“We funded – okay, hold on – a heart transplant. In June of 2020, we worked so hard with the team we were able to provide free mental health care to anybody in Texas and their children in the F&B industry. In August, we went from Texas to Louisiana to California to Illinois,” he said. “We now have the funding, we’re going to start in New York and Connecticut and by 2028 we’ll have all 50 states.

“But it’s events like tonight, it’s events like tomorrow, it’s events like Sunday,” he said, “that gives us the ability to make sure that our industry, the F&B industry, from farmers to fishermen to brewery workers to winery workers to cooks, bussers, dishwashers, everybody’s got a chance. They’ve got somebody. We’ve got your fucking back. We’re never gonna quit, we’re always going to take care of our families.”

Southern Smoke Festival continues throughout the weekend. Visit the organization’s website for ticket information for Sunday’s festival closer featuring Shakey Graves, Disko Cowboy and Maggie Belle.