Olympian Simone Biles is the most decorated gymnast in the world and a self-professed “foodie.” Now, she’s adding “restaurateur” to her running list of accolades.
Biles, a Spring native, will open a Tex-Mex restaurant in her hometown airport — George Bush Intercontinental Airport, also known as IAH — in early 2025, according to an airport release. The restaurant, Taste of Gold, will “feature vibrant, bold flavors of world-class and elevated Tex-Mex cuisine” and is a celebration and obvious nod to Biles’ medal-winning record. Now under construction, the restaurant will be located inside IAH’s Terminal A near Gate A8.
“I am a foodie at heart, and our hope with Taste of Gold is to offer a beautiful Tex-Mex dining experience that features award-winning, signature menu items with some of my favorite flavors sprinkled in for our guests,” Biles said in a statement.
The restaurant Taste of Gold seems just as ambitious as its name. In hopes of “wow”-ing travelers, Biles has teamed up with a list of partners, including Dallas-based veteran restaurateur Mark Brezinski and the Playmakers Group, which operates several airport restaurants that are celebrity- or athlete-themed. The goal, according to Playmarkers’s website, is to offer fans the chance to dine “in what feels like the living room of [their] favorite star” or sports icon. The airport adds that the restaurant aims to offer a “five-star experience,” with promises of exceptional customer service and food that helps showcase Houston as a “premier, world-class destination.”
A “coming soon” promotional mural, captured in an image the airport posted on social media account X, shows what looks to be a shadow of Biles tumbling in front of an American flag.
Biles’s penchant for food has interested the world. The gymnast has already professed to Eater Houston her appreciation for Houston’s dining scene — noting her love of the city’s Tex-Mex scene and restaurants like the Breakfast Klub, Perry’s Steakhouse, Tewbeleaux’s, and Whataburger. Thousands have retweeted and responded to her hot takes on the Threads social media app, on which she notes airport mimosas are “so strong,” people who like oysters are lying, and that, sometimes, she overdoes it on chicken nuggets. In August, the gymnast made waves after she made Midtown restaurant Stick Talk Cajun-Hibachi her first pitstop back in Houston following her big wins in the Paris Olympics. Biles gave it her stamp of approval, noting that it “never misses, and the owner of Stick Talk revealed Biles’s order — stating that her husband, Jonathan Owens, an NFL football safety for the Chicago Bears, picked up two portions of chicken fried rice with vegetables and spicy garlic butter, and an extra side of noodles.
Houston’s largest airport, IAH, seems like a solid choice location-wise for Biles’s restaurant. The athlete is naturally on the move for gymnastics competitions, including, most recently, the Paris Olympic Games, where she won three gold medals and one silver.
Bush Intercontinental, one of the busiest airports in the country, also attracts millions of travelers from around the country. According to the airport itself, IAH welcomed just over 46 million people in 2023.
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