Restaurants in Sugar Land

The Russo family moved from Italy to New York in 1964, and from New York to Texas in 1978, carrying with them time-honored culinary techniques imported straight from the old country. Anthony Russo has worked side by side with family members and Italian chefs since the age of 12, learning to prepares salads, pastas, and pizzas from only the freshest of ingredients. Anthony's love for his family's cooking grew into a lucrative business, with Russo's Coal Fired Italian Kitchen restaurants and Russo's New York Pizzerias popping up all over the American South.

Like a cookie decorated with Lady Liberty's Social Security Number, Russo's pizza is an edible souvenir of the Big Apple, introducing palates to the thin, crispy brick-oven pies that helped make New York cuisine world famous. In between bites of basil-, anchovy-, and meatball-crowned pizzas, diners feast on baked ziti, lobster ravioli, and tortellini carbonara, as well as oven-cooked flatbread sandwiches and toasted calzones.

Nikoz Fusion Grill's cooks fill their kitchen with aromas from sizzling mediterranean kabobs, Indian spices from the baking samosas, and the subtle peanut scent from the drizzle of sauce over the asian salads. Blending flavors and dishes from the Mediterranean, Greece, and Asia, the chefs craft savory gyro sandwiches alongside beef short ribs with special spices and fresh hummus. In addition to dine-in meals, they also fill trays with fusion cuisine for catered events such as birthday parties, retirement lunches, and retiring from the birthday-party circuit.

For more than 30 years, Quiznos has toasted its submarine sandwiches to bring out the hidden flavors found in butcher-quality meats, cheese, and artisan breads. Its classic and signature subs take on a variety of shapes, sizes, and styles ranging from the prime rib mushroom and swiss to the classic italian donning black olives, mozzarella, red-wine vinaigrette, and plentiful sliced meats. Those closely monitoring their waistlines can take unabashed bites of sandwiches that have fewer than 500 calories, such as the pork-cuban, Baja-chicken, and veggie-caprese subs. Quiznos' Toasty Bullets and Torpedoes offer slimmer versions of sub fare and flaunt supreme aerodynamics when shot out of T-shirt cannons and into mouths. A selection of Flatbread Sammies, soups, and salads round out Quiznos' varied menu.

Below modern hanging lights dwells Casbah's proud centerpiece: an enormous all-you-can-eat buffet with more than 45 items, including four varieties of hummus, crisp falafel, and flame-kissed kabobs. Rice with lentils, stuffed squash, and eggplant in pomegranate sauce offer a vegetarian counterpoint to baked fish, chicken shawarma, and lamb shanks. After two-handing an amply stuffed gyro, patrons can sink their teeth into a sweet layered baklava warmed in Casbah's brick oven.

Ali Bahramian wanted to combine the casual atmosphere and quick service of a coffee shop, a diner, and a fast-food eatery, so he decided to start his own from scratch. He developed his own menu built on sandwich, salad, and soup recipes he created himself, enlisted the help of his architect wife Mariam to design a space, and selected soothing jazz and blues music as a backdrop for his eatery.

Within the fully realized Orange Lunch Box, Ali and his staff bake fresh sandwich bread in-house each day and chocolate-chip cookies each hour to pair with cups of coffee. The culinary crew serves salads and sandwiches topped with a range of meats and cheeses, Italian-inspired spreads, and local produce. Orange Lunch Box's interior eschews the presence of television and instead captures diners' attention with a color palette of warm orange, cool green, and room-temperature purple.

G3 Great Greek Grill's three owners, who came together over their love of Greek food, opened the first of their five Houston–area eateries to bring traditional Greek dishes to fast, casual diners. Unlike most Greek restaurants, where the eats come out of the kitchen in a set way, G3 offers patrons a choice between building their own gyros, gliders, or pita sandwiches and devouring classic Mediterranean morsels. G3's chefs also make each generously portioned dish quickly to get patrons in and out the door and on with their lives. In addition to slinging custom falafel to dining-in customers, the grill delivers vittles to houses and caters parties and Greek gods' rap battles.