My Montrose: Shakti Baum, Lowbrow

Tell me about Lowbrow.
Lowbrow is part of the Creek Group. It’s what we call our quintessential neighborhood bar and grill. We’re open seven days a week. We offer an incredibly fun brunch, and we’re a restaurant bar.

How has the Creek Group changed Lowbrow?
We took over [from Omar Afra] in November. I would say the biggest change would be the decor, and I would say maybe the energy has changed a little. We have the same great chef, Jason Kerr. We did expand on the cocktail menu; we added a few more handmade crafty sort of cocktails. The decor has changed – it’s a little more relaxed sort of environment. We increased the size of the menu.

You recently released some new items to the menu right?
We did that yesterday actually! Jason and myself, we put on like eight new dishes, maybe five more salads. Just a few more things to appeal to the community. Lowbrow was awesome, but it definitely had a specific sort of crowd. We wanted to have a space more where like, there was a table of punk kids next to a table of 45 year old dads. It’s pretty badass, our clientele.

Do you see different demographics in Montrose than the Heights?
Well, the Heights is pretty diverse. There’s working class people, a large Hispanic community. So I think the people are pretty similar.

Do you see a lot of bike or foot traffic at Lowbrow?
We see a lot of bike traffic! We are a member of BikeHouston, so we do a ton of bike events with them. We’re all about riding your bike. We have a couple of bike racks, and a lot of our employees ride their bikes to work. We just did a huge bike event with Karbach for Valentine’s Day. It was a Creek Karbach Crawl that we ended at Lowbrow, and that was great.

And you said your brunch is really good?
Yeah, we have a DJ on Sundays. We have brunch both days on the weekend, and we open at 8AM. So for early brunchers, get your butt down here for breakfast! No need to wait until 10.

What’s your favorite thing about Montrose?
Well, I have a soft spot for Montrose because I spent time here when I was younger. I would say the diversity. It’s the diverse heart of the city.

How would you say the neighborhood has changed over the years?
The biggest change to Montrose is traffic! You can’t drive anywhere. I want to be like “Please ride your bikes, people!”

Is there anything coming up at Lowbrow?
Oh, man, all kinds of fun stuff. This is our third month of Speed Dating Bingo with John Mills-McCoin! We also do weekly specials like steak night on Tuesdays, and crawfish on Sundays! We are definitely planning to add more events as we go.

Thanks for talking to us, Shakti!

Check out more about Lowbrow here.