The Cloister

Love Treebeards and this location is lovely. It’s set up cafeteria style but you can also order food to go. It can get busy, particularly if you get there right when jurors come for lunch, but I’ve always found it efficient and everyone is very helpful and friendly.

Fantastic! We liked the efficiency and speed of the cafeteria style food service. Lots of seating available. If you like sharing tables then you will like the set up at this Treebeards. The shrimp and crayfish étouffées were so rich and creamy. Delicious! (Don’t say cr-​ay-​fish; the employee who helped us kept correcting us as we ordered –cr-​AH-​fish). Seafood gumbo was full of flavor. We recommend Treebeards!

One of the good things about jury duty. I had the trio for $ 6.95. You choose 3 sides. I got cucumber/​tomato salad, red beans & rice and the fruit cup. The fruit was fresh, the cucumber was crispy & the red beans were well flavored. Ate every bite & was full. Great deal for the price!

Mad at myself cause I have a Treebeards across the street from my building but yet I walked 10 blocks to try THE CLOISTER only to find out it’s just Treebeards. The food was awesome but not 10 blocks of walking awesome.

I love this place. It’s simplicity is brilliant. Small town feeling in the middle of a huge city.

Working in downtown for the first time I had no clue where the best lunch spots were so on the recommendation of coworkers I went to Treebeards at this location for the first time. The 2 minute walk and convenience is excellent but that is probably the best thing about it.
I ordered the baked fish with etoufee and side orders of mashed potatoes/​red beans and rice for about $ 11. For take out the ordering process is fast and efficient. The staff is friendly and service is excellent. You get your order in under 5 minutes in most cases. For dine in the format is like Luby’s with a cafeteria style line where you pick out things and pay at the end of the line.
The fish was good but not great and kind of heavy on the oil floating around on it. The red beans and rice is light on the rice and extremely heavy on the salt. Portion size is good and they include 2 large pieces of bread with packets of butter as a part of the order. You can get additional bread free of charge from the table near the cashiers. Condiments and extras like pickled peppers are also free of charge. I discovered they did not include the mashed potatoes after I returned to my office and sat down for lunch. It was not worth the walk back for this but I was disappointed I did not get everything I paid for. Check your order before you walk out.
The dine in area of the restaurant is the social hall of the church it operates in. Treebeards is an independent business and not part of the church. The dining area is nice meaning things are orderly/​clean and the crowd is mostly working people in downtown. There are no thugs or wannabe gangsters with baggy pants. Since the room is very large and has a high ceiling the noise level even with most tables occupied is really good. You can talk to someone at your table without yelling which is great.
Overall, I would not point people away from this establishment but it is just not to my liking for the money and quality of food.

If you expect a church cafeteria with better than cafeteria-​quality food, you may be pleasantly surprised. I wasn’t and I wasn’t.
I had the red beans and rice with sausage, accompanied by an unsweetened tea. They were aw’ight, but not something I would go out of my way to have again.
Seating is straight out of middle school: those long tables with the attached benches on each side.
Most of the dishes are cajun-​influenced. You go through the cafeteria line in the kitchen, point at the metal bin you want a spoonful from and pay in the cafeteria.
Pretty interesting mix of clientele: a number of 80-​somethings, business people in suits and the random «out of their element» people (waving my hand). Maybe I just don’t get it, as the lunch room was filled and the cafeteria line was long.
Prices can’t be beat, as it ran $ 10 for a lot of cafeteria food.

This Treebeard’s is at a very cool location, instead of being it’s own place it has collaborated with a church and serves lunch dining hall/​cafeteria style. There’s parking along the street, just be sure to get there a little before lunch hour, the area filled up pretty fast when it got to noon.
Seafood gumbo — i got the bowl and it was a ton of food, comes with rice at the bottom and plenty of gumbo on top
Fruit cup — this was unexpectedly the best fruit cup i’ve had, it looked delicious and all the fruits were sweet, there was blackberries, cantaloupe, hondeydew, pineapple, strawberries, kiwi
There’s different specials everyday so keep an eye out for them!

Love this place in downtown for a quick meal. This is the second time that I’ve been here and every dish we had was enjoyable. The chicken fried steak was crispy on the outside and moist, and even comes with 2 sides. had their mashed potatoes, red beans and rice, and their mac and cheese. love their mac and cheese which has little bits of bacon and onion in it and not overly cheesy. All the sides were delicious. We also had their chicken and sausage gumbo and their jambalaya which were great especially with their hot sauce offered on the table. Although I’m not used to eating a un-​warmed bread pudding, it was quite enjoyable and moist.

Love love love! A perfect first meal in Houston while on a work trip! Beans and rice rocked my world!!!

Always good and consistent. Love that chicken and sausage gumbo!

Probably my most frequented lunch spot downtown. This place is excellent! It’s located in a church cafeteria, which is a cool change of pace from your normal downtown lunch spots. I’ve been here many times, and never have I been disappointed by any of their dishes. Chicken fried chicken, red beans and rice, fried catfish — it’s all good. They’ve also got gumbo and jambalaya. I couldn’t ask for a better creole/​southern cooking spot downtown! They’ve also got free bread and butter — not that you’ll be needing it. Everything is already filling enough on its own!

Awesome. I LOVE the red beans & rice and their cheesy cornbread is delish! Just tried their meatloaf for the 1^st time today… and it was awesome as well! An added bonus is this great unique location. The outside courtyard is beautiful and soooo peaceful!

As much as I have an entirely open and unabashedly deep-​seated hatred, distrust, and outright antipathy towards organized religion: I do like food. Christ Church figured out how to stick out a tasty olive branch to me and my stomach — serve Treebeards’ delicious food in a large dining hall to me and my friends as we discuss Christopher Hitchens’ memoir and other Pastafarian topics du jour.
The food is the same as the other locations — but the jalapeño cornbread tastes just a little more satisfying. It must be the holy water used in the preparation, tinged with the tears of the thousands of altar boys who no longer will fall for the priest’s request to «please pick that up off of the ground for me.»
The workers in the food line and the cashier are all kind of grumpy though. I don’t get it. Treebeards Tunnel and the real one on Travis all have good employees. It is a short inconvenience though — get through the line and cashier and then you are home free to stuff your face and begin your diatribe about the hypocrisy of the church.

I get excited anytime someone at work suggests going to «the church» for lunch.
The chicken fried chicken is delicious here. The batter is nice and crisp, the chicken can be slightly dry, but still good… and the gravy is, well, gravy (cue laugh track). Their veggie casseroles are good too. My co-​workers swear by the red beans and rice, though I’ve never had it. I just cannot pass up chicken fried chicken.
Oh, and the whiskey bread pudding… YUM. So sweet and rich, you almost forget how fattening they are. Until the food coma reminds you.
The line can get pretty long. Sometimes the jury from the courthouse across the street come here for lunch, so that can make the line worse.
The prices are middle of the road for downtown.

It’s kind of like an overpriced Luby’s though the quality of the food is a little better than Luby’s. If you’re looking for a quick and convenient lunch, this is a good place to go. I ordered the chicken, which was dry and didn’t have much flavor. Their gumbo was not great either. I did enjoy the red beans and rice though. My wife ordered the fish and said it was good.
My actual rating would probably be 2 ½ but I’m rounding up because of convenience.

This place is an amazing quick lunch. We went a little early (11:30ish) and there was no line.
I’m pretty inexperienced with southern food — so I played it safe with the fried catfish (who doesn’t like fried food), jalapeño cornbread (who doesn’t like corn bread?) and coleslaw. It was all delicious. The catfish was soft and juicy on the inside and crispy on the outside — I want to learn to fry fish like this! The cornbread was crumbly and amazing, with the occasional chunk of jalapeño to keep things exciting. The slaw was good, but a little odd — it had blue cheese in it. I think of it more as a cabbage salad.
My only regret is that I didn’t get to try the baked goods, I was too full.

My new favorite place in downtown Houston. A Cajun cafeteria within a newer wing of a beautiful old church smack in the middle of Houston. No neon signs, but a nondescript entrance off a quiet courtyard. Obviously serving lots of regulars and only for lunch. Creole, meatloaf, mashed potatoes, red beans dirty rice and hearty salads… mmmmm.
Other highlights: huge cake deserts, several types of hot sauce on the vinyl covered folding tables. And today, an olde tyme jazz band, lots of police and a jury on lunch break… life in America.

As with all cafeterias, I have a system for ordering on the cheap, and here the system plays off wonderfully with red beans and rice with sausage. $ 3 gets you a link of sausage, a filling cup of red beans and rice, and that delicious free French bread. Corn bread is pretty disgusting, dry and tasteless. Butter for the bread tastes like gelatin.
Order just a step too quirky and you’re looking at a $ 15 lunch. Still, this is the place to go, for something quick, tasty, and cheap, all in an interesting setting.

I’ve eaten here several times, but for some reason I always take a long time to go back. This is a mistake I’ll need to rectify.
To experience Treebeards at The Cloister is an amalgamation of several different facets of a good dining experience. The food is really good, but not spectacular. The setting is very interesting, but not in an amazing way. The price is average. The live music, on it’s own, may not be the most popular. What makes this Treebeards great is the way all of these factors fit together to make a very relaxing, tasty, fun lunch.
The food here is Cajun style, although there are more authentic Cajun restaurants in Houston. Still, the food here is Cajun with a hint of Houston thrown in. It’s delicious, and can really hit the spot whether you want red beans and rice or just a salad. Their desserts are delicious, and are far cheaper than most of the places I like to get desserts from.
There is also a live band that often plays there, made up of elderly musicians playing primarily Jazz, Swing, etc. It always adds a happy, calming note to the meal. I don’t know how old these guys are, but the band gives me the sense that I had better enjoy them while they are still able to perform.
The setting is great, it’s a church cafeteria, in a very beautiful Episcopalian church. After you eat, if you haven’t been there before, go on a tour of the chapel. There is often a person there who can give you an informal tour and provide some insight into the history of this church.
Overall, I would say that this is one of the must experience places that defines Houston. It’s not that any specific thing is outstanding, it’s the combination of all the facets of this eatery that makes it interesting.