Just found out that Hidden Omakase was damaged after a someone drove a car through the place. No injuries reported.

Story below.

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By Chyna Blackmon

One of Houston's Michelin-recognized restaurants has been forced to temporarily close after a car crashed through the dining room.

Hidden Omakase, located at 5353 W Alabama St. in the Galleria area, is temporarily pausing operations to repair damage left from a vehicle that drove straight through its windows, its team announced Monday in a social media post.

Video of the aftermath shows a car smack in the middle of the Japanese restaurant that opened in 2021. It left shattered glass, downed walls and broken furniture after having smashed through the space.

"A car decided to skip the reservation list and come straight into Hidden Omakase. Everyone is safe, and we're incredibly thankful for that. We'll be temporarily closed while we clean up, repair the space, and make sure everything is back to the standard y'all know us for. All upcoming reservations will be rescheduled, and our team will be reaching out directly to guests," the post read.

"Thank you for all the love and support already. Hidden Omakase will be back soon, preferably with guests entering through the front door only."

Details of the incident are still unknown. The restaurant and Houston Police Department have yet to respond to Chron's request for more information.

Photos of the restaurant taken about an hour after its social media post show the car had been removed from the property.

Hidden Omakase is one of Houston's more popular and revered restaurants. In 2024, Michelin designated it for its Texas guide book. The restaurant is typically closed on Monday.

The director of Houston Public Works told Owen Conflenti on Mayor Whitmire's podcast recently that the city's pothole program is "best in the country."

 "We resolve 99 percent of resident-reported pothole problems within the next business day." 

We looked into the data to see just how much work the city does in filling potholes.

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Here's our story:

For anyone who has spent time dodging craters on Houston roads, this bold claim may come as a surprise: The director of Houston Public Works says the city's pothole program is "the best in the country."

Houston Public Works (HPW) Director Randy Macchi, interviewed for the May 15 episode of Mayor John Whitmire's podcast 901 Bagby: Inside the Mayor's Office, made an assertion likely to raise eyebrows among Houstonians who know the city's pothole-ridden roads all too well.

"Houston's potholes program is the best in the country," Macchi told host Owen Conflenti. "We resolve 99 percent of resident-reported pothole problems within the next business day."

Labeling the resolution timeline "incredible," Macchi said colleagues nationwide have asked him how the department is able to fix potholes so quickly.

"There's a commitment and a dedication," Macchi said. "There's also some resources to back that up."

Macchi identified potholes as "symptoms" of a larger problem, adding the issue offered city engineers "great opportunities" to develop longer-term solutions. The HPW director, who has served in his role since 2024, pointed to ongoing city efforts, like the Pavement Preservation Program.

"It's like my folks used to say, if you'll take care of it, it'll last you, and that's no different with our streets," Macchi said. "There's challenges of course, but that's up to us to be innovative in how to solve them."

HPW did not immediately respond to Chron's request for comment by the time of publication.

What city data shows

As of Sunday, 377 pothole service requests submitted to the city's 311 Helpline in 2026 were filled by the next business day, according to the city's tracker. Only one resident-reported pothole was not immediately serviced.

In the last week, the city reportedly filled 1,374 potholes proactively and another nine at resident request. So far in 2026, the city has proactively filled a total of 21,843 potholes in addition to the 378 reported by residents.

The city uses a broad definition of a pothole, classifying it as "any area of missing or severely deteriorated pavement that is up to about 5 feet by 5 feet," according to the city website.

Macchi recently told the Houston Business Journal the department deals with about 55,000 potholes annually and spends between $5 million to $6 million on repairs.

Officials continually point to Houston's extreme weather, aging infrastructure and growing traffic volume as key challenges.

Houston roads rank poorly, but paving progresses

While Macchi labels Houston's pothole program the best nationwide, local Houston roadways recently ranked as the worst among major metros in the state.

A December 2025 analysis by the Transportation Research and Innovation Program found that 51 percent of locally maintained roads in the Houston area were in poor condition. Roads rated in "poor condition" typically had significant cracking, potholes or uneven pavement.

To Macchi's credit, Houston has reportedly made significant progress within the last year. HPW has rehabilitated almost 750 lane miles of roadway in the last 10 months, according to Macchi.

"That's more than double the best the city ever did over a 15-month period previously," Macchi said. "We're making some real strides, we're making real progress."

Texans are talking about how ridiculously loud these AI data centers are.

Story below (also in link and not under any paywall)

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By Macy Meinhardt

As Texas races to become the largest data center market in the world, another side effect of the boom is beginning to draw scrutiny: relentless noise pollution.

In Brazoria County, residents living near a Giga Energy computing site around the Sloping Acres neighborhood say a constant industrial hum has disrupted daily life for months. Several neighbors have compared the sound to an enormous "washing machine" that never turns off. 

One nearby resident recently wrote on social media that her family had "spent years to be where we are today," only for "an AI data center to come in and ruin our peace."

"We can't even sit on the back porch without the constant noise," resident Kimberly Fortenberry wrote, criticizing what she described as an ineffective "sound wall" installed near the site.

At just six acres, the Brazoria facility is relatively small compared to the massive AI campuses planned elsewhere in Texas, but it foreshadows the growing quality of life concerns data centers will face as they expand close to residential areas.  

"The data center that was put near our home in Brazoria on 6 acres has been mentally and physically exhausting. The noise rattles you to the core 24/7," wrote Melissa Burnett.  

Why data centers are so loud

Unlike normal office buildings, data centers operate around the clock and require extensive cooling mechanisms to keep thousands of servers from overheating. Those systems generate a constant mechanical hum that can travel hundreds of feet beyond facility boundaries. 

"When operating, data centers emit sounds from the humming of cooling systems and air chillers, the rumbling of diesel generators, and the whirring of fans. Together, these sounds can be heard for hundreds of feet around the facilities," according to a recent report on data center noise from the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. 

Beyond simple annoyance, the report also states that surrounding residents have reported headaches, vertigo, nausea, sleep disturbances, ear pain, and hypertension from prolonged exposure to the constant noise. 

The Virginia warning Texans are watching

The phenomenon is not exclusive to Texas. In the past few weeks, noise from data centers gained national attention after a video capturing the eerie "hum" noise outside a data facility in Virginia went viral.

Currently, Virginia is home to the world's largest concentration of data centers, with cities such as Ashburn being dubbed "data center alley." However, by 2030, experts estimate that Texas will overtake Virginia as the world's largest data center market due to its lower land costs and energy access. 

Texas is building even bigger AI campuses

One of the companies helping drive that expansion, Vantage Data Centers, is already constructing what it describes as its largest campus yet outside of Abilene. 

The project, known as "Frontier," will span roughly 1,200 acres and will eventually host 10 data center facilities equipped to produce up to 1.4 gigawatts of electricity. 

By comparison, the Frontier campus in Texas will be more than 23 times the size of the facility caught on camera in Virginia and will emit nearly seven times more electricity. 

And if smaller facilities are already generating complaints loud enough to go viral, some Texans are beginning to wonder what happens when the world’s largest AI campuses fully power on.