The Classics is an occasional series that spotlights and celebrates Houston’s oldest bars and restaurants.

From the moment Lankford’s Grocery & Market opened its doors almost 90 years ago, it’s been a fan favorite. And now? The love us Houstonians have for it just keeps on growing.  

Aubrey and Nona Lankford first opened the business in 1937 as a fruit stand. Two years later, the couple moved to Lankford’s current location and expanded it into a mom-and-pop grocery store until the late 1970s and early ’80s, when their daughter Eydie Lankford Prior took over.

Lankford Prior realized it was time to surrender to bigger grocery stores like Kroger, H-E-B, and Randalls and branch out to open a full-service restaurant. Her son, Paul Prior, who took over the business in 2021 alongside his wife, Jessica, says the evolution came naturally. 

“It was kind of customer demand, plus just the changing of times,” he says. “We had to make some changes to survive, and that’s why it became a restaurant.” 

More and more customers started to come to Lankford’s for happy hour; they’d sit around, chat, drink beer, and chow down on some of the burgers. Paul says his mom was the mastermind behind the original menu. She always joked that “nothing was fast and nothing was healthy.” Instead, the mission was to have her customers enjoy the experience.

The menu started off pretty basic, just regular burgers, cheeseburgers, and bacon cheeseburgers. But eventually, Eydie, who loved cooking, decided to experiment with different spices. Paul says that’s actually how the Firehouse Burger came to be—his mom wanted to add some kick to the menu. It boasts a half-pound patty and comes topped with habanero mustard, cayenne butter, jalapeños, lettuce, tomato, pickles, and onion. 

Another fan favorite is the Grim burger, which was created by one of Lankford’s customers over 20 years ago. It’s made with mac and cheese, jalapeños, bacon, cheddar cheese, and a sunny-side up fried egg. 

Over the years, Eydie continued to nurture the restaurant, and as Lankford’s grew, so did the Prior family and the generational involvement. When Paul married Jessica in 1991, she joined in on the family business and worked there on and off until they officially took ownership.  And if you walked in on any given day that Jessica was around, you were probably met with kids in their jumpers or sitting around on the counter. But the real fun for Lankford’s came in 2009, when the restaurant was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. The show sampled its Firehouse burger and Paul says this is what really put them on the map. 

“We had a line out the door the day after. [It was] all the way down the street,” Paul says. “It probably got the word out across the city of Houston. Now we have people coming from Katy, the Woodlands, you know, [people] from all over come here.” 

Just over a decade after the restaurant’s TV show debut, Eydie decided it was time for her to hang up her apron and hand over the business. Although Paul and Jessica both take care of Lankford’s, Paul has been pretty busy with the corporate life since the beginning of their marriage. So when the opportunity came for the couple to take over the business, Jessica became the actual owner. Given her constant involvement over the years, the decision wasn’t shocking. 

Over the last four years, the couple has tried to stay true to the mission of the restaurant, especially when it comes to certain cooking techniques. Funnily enough, just this last month, the kitchen manager decided to buy different potatoes for the restaurant’s hand-cut french fries, but it didn’t bode well with their customers. 

“We were like, Yeah, don’t ever do that again,” Paul says. “We hold true to what we’ve done in the past.”

Paul knows that what sets them apart from other Houston restaurants—and what’s helped them remain in business—is the quality of their food and Lankford’s inviting atmosphere, so he doesn’t ever want to veer from that. Though he notes that some change is inevitable, especially when it comes to keeping up with the times. The business was once cash-only, but when Jessica and Paul took over, they started accepting cards. And like his mom, Paul has also gotten the itch to create new menu items. Since taking over, he’s added about five burgers, bringing the restaurant’s total options to 17. 

Paul jokes that at the time he was on a bit of a barbecue kick, so most of his burgers reflect that. Some of his additions include the Texan, made with a half-pound patty, mustard, smoked sausage, an onion ring, pickles, and cheddar cheese, as well as the Houston burger, which really packs on the meat: It boasts a half-pound patty, slow-smoked brisket, pickles, onions, cheddar cheese, and barbecue sauce.  

But the biggest change since taking ownership is the addition of the Bellaire location that opened in 2023. Paul says expansion had always been on his mind. When he was at the restaurant on weekends, he’d constantly ask customers where they came in from, and a constant answer, other than Katy and The Woodlands, was Bellaire. He settled on a space off Bissonnet Street. 

Unlike the OG location, Bellaire operates with a counter service, and it offers an expanded menu with cocktail options and a self-pour beer wall with 20 Texas craft beers priced by the ounce. The second location also has several TVs and a gated area for kids to play. Paul says this was done to encourage a family-friendly environment.  

The food offered also varies from the original location. The Bellaire menu features several entrées like grilled chicken, chopped steak, chicken fried steak, and Tex-Mex quesadillas, as well as an additional burger dubbed the 3B, or the Bellaire bacon burger. Its angus beef patty is topped with bacon jam, grilled fresh jalapeños, lettuce, tomato, bacon, and pepper jack cheese. 

Right now, Paul and Jessica are enjoying the fact that they’re getting the opportunity to build on Lankford’s history and are even eyeing further expansion. Although he isn’t sure where exactly, he hints that one of Houston’s suburbs could soon be home to a third spot. 

“We’re feeling more positive about future locations, so we’ll see what happens,” he says. 

And given it’s always been a full family affair, they have high hopes that one of their children will help continue the legacy in the future.  

“We definitely want to keep it in the family,” he says. “We would love for it to carry on [for] many, many generations.”