“Opening a restaurant was always the intention when we founded Verdegreens Farms in 2016,” said Billy Trainor, the co-owner of newly opened Good God, Nadines’s, a restaurant in Houston. “The farm and the restaurant are born of the same passion: to feed people better food.”
Good God, Nadine’s debuted May 27 in the city’s Heights neighborhood, promising an experience that “channels the energy of everyone’s favorite eccentric aunt” and is equal parts Southern restaurant, cocktail lounge, and garden party.
Verdegreens Farms is a hydroponic facility that grows herbs and leafy greens for local restaurants and markets. It was founded by a restaurateur, a chef, and a winemaker who all wanted to step back from the hospitality side of dining and get closer to the food itself. They started the farm to accomplish that goal, but Trainor said they always planned to become their own best customer by opening a restaurant to serve what they grow. Good God, Nadine’s is the result of that desire.
The restaurant “channels the energy of everyone’s favorite eccentric aunt,” according to co-owner Billy Trainor.
The restaurant “channels the energy of everyone’s favorite eccentric aunt,” according to co-owner Billy Trainor.
The restaurant was designed by Gin Design Group and covers 4,000 square feet across three distinct spaces. There’s a moody indoor bar featuring deep colors, tile, brass accents, and art-lined walls, a covered, air-conditioned patio through a set of French doors, and a sunny al fresco garden patio that’s lush with greenery, whitewashed brick, and striped fabrics.
“We wanted to create the kind of place where you instantly feel at home, whether you’re in flip-flops or dressed to the nines,” said Trainor.
The bar menu features craft cocktails, frozen cocktails, and beers and wines on tap, and the food pulls inspiration from the Gulf of Mexico and the Deep South.
The menu features cocktails, wines, and Gulf-inspired food.
A rotating raw bar serves oysters on the half shell and other seafood, like a green pepper-laced aguachile and Vietnamese crab Louis. The Prawn Party is a shareable spread of shrimp prepared three ways — classic cold-boiled, Sichuan-style salt and pepper, and shrimp salad — and served with rémoulade, cocktail sauces, dill garlic bread, and asparagus.
Nightly blue-plate specials put a creative spin on comfort classics, with dishes like meatloaf.
Wellington, fried chicken coq au vin, and pho-spiced pork chops. A section of sandwiches features a double cheeseburger and po’boys loaded with choice of braised beef, shrimp, or blackened redfish.
The Houstonian cocktail features butterfly pea flower gin, tonic, crème de violette, and star anise.
Verdegreens Farms supplies many of the ingredients that go into the dishes. Trainor calls the concept “seed to fork.”
If the restaurant wants shiso for a dish or French sorrel for a sauce, the farm grows it, giving them control of the palette of flavors and ingredients they can work with.
“It’s an ever-inspiring synergy between what we do at the farm and in the restaurant, and it means that patrons at the restaurant are always eating locally and in-season, because what shows up on their plates is either grown by us or one of the partner farms we showcase on the menu,” Trainor said. “We think of food as a craft, and that craft extends from our small farm to the dining table.”
