Few restaurants are as iconically Houston as The Original Ninfa’s, which dates back to a newly widowed Mama Ninfa Laurenzo grilling sizzling skirt steak up in the East End in 1973. Now this uniquely Houston institution is getting its own concession stand in University of Houston’s TDECU Stadium for Cougar football games.

Call it another sign of UH’s push to be the university of the nation’s fourth largest city. The new $130 million Memorial Hermann Football Operations Center is marked by such ties and touches. The massive second floor weight room looks out on a sweeping view of downtown, boasts a red sign that simply reads Houston and features a full wall with a giant map of the city that shows UH’s place in it. Still, there is something else about having the food of the city in your stadium.

“It’s important because for me anything that makes our fans, when they get in stadium, have a comfort or they feel like we are listening to them, it’s important,” University of Houston athletic director Eddie Nuñez tells PaperCity. “I don’t know if these are going to be great. Or not. But thinking outside the box, looking at all these different things that we can find a way to tie in with our Houston culture, the community, that’s important.

“You’ll see more and more of it. Not just in graphics. But in food. Everything we do.”

Besides the iconic Ninfa’s in its own stand on the main concourse, UH’s other new food offerings at TDECU Stadium this season include Halal Guys, Layne’s Chicken Fingers and the more national chain traditional Pizza Hut. Nuñez aims for this football rollout to be just the start.

This AD wants to up the basketball game concessions at Fertitta Center too. He’s heard the complaints about the limited food options for the games of the beyond nationally elite program that Kelvin Sampson’s built.

“Heck yeah,” Nuñez tells PaperCity when asked if the distinctive local food push will carry over to basketball. “For me, why stop? I want it to be at baseball. Now will we have something maybe different there? Sure. . .

“I want to be able to provide that experience at all our venues. . . Basketball, yeah. It’s about the experience.”

The experience will start with UH football’s season opener Thursday night against Stephen F. Austin, with Willie Fritz’s program hitting year two of its rebuild makeover. Football season tickets are not close to where a team that wants to be a future Big 12 power needs them to be, but Nuñez sees improvement.

“We’re good,” the AD says. “Look, I’m never content. I know we can always do more. So I want to see more. But I also know that we’ve got to get people to buy in and trust. I want to tell them: ‘Buy in now because this ride’s going to get a lot more exciting. And much more interesting.’ And I want them to be on the ride from day one and not just jump on midway through.

“But either way we’re going to want them to just get on board.”

“Heck yeah. For me, why stop? I want it to be at baseball. Now will we have something maybe different there? Sure. . .I want to be able to provide that experience at all our venues. . . Basketball, yeah. It’s about the experience.” — UH athletic director Eddie Nuñez  on ugrading Fertitta Center’s concession options.

The Houston Football Reality

A bowl season with a much more exciting (and productive) offense from Fritz in year two would be another major building block. But nothing is guaranteed in the ever-shifting landscape of 2025 college football. UH’s first game is on ESPN+ even though it’s on a Thursday night for a reason. The national belief and interest in Houston football remains low.

This is a prove-it season.

“We want to put ourselves in a position where people can see us,” Nuñez says. “We have history. History never leaves. Traditions never go anywhere. And the reality is what we’re trying to do is let people see where our new program is, what our new leader is going to do here.

“… But to me to be able to use unique platforms on a Thursday night, Colorado on ESPN — big ESPN — on a Friday night, some of these other ones we’re going to have throughout the year, all that’s maximizing our exposure. It’s elevating this campus. It’s putting eyes on this program.”

Nuñez tells PaperCity that he would like to see another even bigger scoreboard, the largest in college football, on the other end of UH’s football stadium to tie things together and add to the atmosphere. But that’s a dream for the future. The now includes the 14 new suites that the football operations build made possible, the Queenie O’Rourke’s Party Patio shaded premium seating area (with 300 seats) below the current scoreboard and the air-conditioned Touchdown Club, with its entrance right through the lobby of the new football operations building with its long Houston red staircase, twisting ceiling sculpture and UH football wall of honor.

Through bleacher seat removal and the addition of 400 new club seats, the overall seating capacity in Houston’s stadium remains in the 40,000 range.

“We kind of netted out with the bleachers that we took out that used to be here on the west side,” UH senior associate athletics director for facilities T.J. Meagher says. “I don’t think we greatly impacted our attendance capacity one way or the other. Pretty much on par — with what we took out, we put back.”

Only the back in is more premium seating, which almost always sells first.

From Houston-approved food they actually recognize and like eating such as Ninfa’s to nicer seats, this new UH fan world is certainly more of the moment. Now Willie Fritz’s team just needs to grab the moment.