‘The Diva of Dining’ launched Houston Restaurant Weeks
Cleverley Stone, the founder of Houston Restaurant Weeks, a philanthropic initiative responsible for raising the profile of Houston restaurants and providing tens of millions of meals for the region’s food insecure, died Thursday. She was 68.
A longtime media presence on the Houston food scene, Stone said in October that she was diagnosed with stage 4 uterine cancer. In making the announcement on Facebook, Stone took the opportunity to encourage women to pay attention to their gynecological health.
“Early detection would have offered me a better prognosis, but I ignored my symptoms,” she wrote. “Please go to your doctor if you have any symptoms.”
While Houstonians knew her from television (since 2008 she was a regular contributor to Houston’s Fox 26 Morning News with her “Cooking With Cleverley” segments) and radio (“The Cleverley Food Talk Radio Show” aired live on Saturday mornings on CBS Houston radio for 13 years), she was best known for her work as the volunteer chair of Houston Restaurant Weeks, which she founded in 2003 as a fundraiser for the Houston Food Bank. Since its inception, Houston Restaurant Weeks has raised more than $16.6 million, enabling the distribution of about 50 million meals.
Longtime Houston restaurateur Michael Cordúa remembers that fewer than a dozen restaurants banded together for the first restaurant week, which raised about $18,000.
“It used to be that she had to chase us to participate. But now restaurants are fighting to be part of it,” said Cordúa, whose Houston restaurants included Churrascos and Americas. “I don’t know of anyone who has created something like this. I’ve always said that the restaurants in Houston should have a statue to Cleverley.”
Stone was born in New York City, grew up in New Jersey and attended the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Her early career began in New York City at the Manhattan flagship of the prestigious B. Altman & Co. luxury department store. There, Stone served as bridal director and head buyer of fine china, crystal and silver for 13 stores across the East Coast.
She moved to Houston in 1989 to work with Foley’s department stores, which had recently been acquired by publicly traded May Department Stores Co., where she served as corporate bridal director managing the bridal registry for the chain’s more than 40 stores in the Southwest. During that time, Stone also wrote a weekly Sunday newspaper column in the Houston Post, eventually becoming the editor of the paper’s wedding section.
After the Houston Post ceased publication in 1995, Stone started a newsletter about Houston’s emerging dining scene and faxed it to friends and connections in the restaurant industry. With the arrival of email, the newsletter became even more popular and evolved into Stone’s threehour weekly radio talk show, “The Cleverley Food Talk Radio Show,” which first aired in 2003. The radio show was considered a must-listen by Houston’s foodies and was the longest running program on CBS 650 AM, celebrating its 13th anniversary in 2020.
Her work within the restaurant industry earned her the nickname “The Diva of Dining.” As one of the old guard reporters covering the Houston dining scene, Stone was known as being tough, exacting and at times demanding. She had little patience for bloggers and self-proclaimed food experts as smartphones proliferated and socialmedia influencers began emerging on the growing Houston food landscape. Harnessing her considerable media platforms, she was used to getting her way.
Cordúa joked that he agreed to participate in Houston Restaurant Weeks “so she would stop bothering me.”
Restaurateur Benjamin Berg, recalls that when he first arrived in Houston in 2011 as the new general manager at Smith & Wollensky steakhouse, Stone called him to remind him that the restaurant had yet to send a check to the Food Bank for its Houston Restaurant Weeks contribution.
“I took care of it,” said Berg, who owns Berg Hospitality Group.
“She was a powerhouse in growing Houston Restaurant
Weeks from 10 restaurants to 250,” said Berg, whose B&B Butchers & Restaurant was among the fundraiser’s top contributors in recent years. “She was the one who always supported the restaurants. She really cared about the restaurants and the chefs. She wanted to see everyone be successful.”
Tributes to Stone played out Thursday afternoon on social media as Houston foodies paid their respects.
“She was sometimes sweet, sometimes challenging but always amazing,” Shanon Scott, owner of Roma restaurant in Rice Village, wrote on Facebook. “You will be missed.”
“The incomparable, indomitable and irreplaceable Cleverley Stone has left us,” wrote Sean Beck, beverage director for Hugo Ortega’s and Tracy Vaught’s restaurant group. “She was a unique person who left a lasting mark on the city of Houston, the restaurant industry and most of all the lives of hundreds of thousands fed by the Houston Food Bank.”
Arthur Mooradian, regional director for Del Frisco’s Restaurant Group, called Stone a vital bridge between Houston and the culinary world across the country.
“She put Houston on the map, in my opinion,” Mooradian said. “I met Thomas Keller, Daniel Boulud and Wolfgang Puck and all these amazing chefs through Cleverley. They all knew Cleverley.”
While Stone rubbed shoulders with the most famous chefs, food personalities and cookbook authors — nationally and locally — her heart belonged to the restaurant weeks’ partnership with the Houston Food Bank.
“I was privileged enough to be in meetings regarding Houston Restaurant Weeks. I would sit there and watch her talk about the hungry children and the number of meals we could produce with every dollar donated,” Mooradian said. “Watching her tearing up and crying in a couple of cases really hit home with me how much it meant to her.”
The Houston Food Bank said this in a statement Thursday: “Through her work on Houston Restaurant Weeks, the largest annual fundraiser benefiting the Houston Food Bank, she touched millions of lives. Cleverley had an extraordinary passion to make a difference in the community she loved so much, and that she did. In the 17 years of the event, a cumulative $16.6 million, equivalent to 50 million meals, was raised to provide food for better lives. Cleverley had many amazing qualities: dedicated volunteer, passionate foodie, fun and creative radio and TV host, to name a few, and a friend to the Houston Food Bank family and the community we serve. Houston Restaurant Weeks is Cleverley’s legacy and we are honored to have worked closely with her on the event each year. Thank you, Cleverley.”
Stone is survived by daughter Katie, son-in law Joe and grandson Luca. Donations in her memory can be made to the Houston Food Bank at houstonfoodbank.org or 535 Portwall St., Houston, TX, 77029.