With ChòpnBlok, Ope Amosu centers flavor and community

By Arman Saxena and Juliana Lightsey     2/25/25 11:47pm

Ope Amosu used to host small dinner parties out of his friend’s apartment by the Galleria, serving a menu of his own West African fusion recipes. His intention was to have a completely new guest list at each dinner, in order to get a diverse variety of feedback on his food – but people kept asking to come back.

These days, Amosu serves a far bigger audience. His Nigerian heritage, his time at Rice’s Jones Graduate School of Business and his work experiences both in and out of Houston have shaped his career today, Amosu said. His West-African restaurant, “ChòpnBlok,” opened its Montrose location on Oct. 1 – but that was far from the restaurant’s beginning.

Amosu, who grew up in Houston, received his Master of Business Administration from the Jones Graduate School in 2014. However, he didn’t immediately enter the restaurant business, opting instead to work in the oil and gas industry. 

---

---

“A couple years into that was when I had the realization that I might want to try something else,” Amosu said. “The older I got, the harder it became for me to gain access to the culture I grew up in.”

As he traveled for his work, Amosu realized that the lack of easily accessible and immersive West African culture could be an untapped market, and his first venture into the culinary world.

“[I wanted] to build community around two universal languages: good food and good music,” Amosu said. “Regardless of your background, either of those things will get you hooked, and once we have you hooked we can showcase the beauty of who we are culturally.”

ChòpnBlok’s menu today incorporates a medley of flavors from across the African diaspora, Amosu said, such as a ‘motherland curry’ blending East African flavors with West African elements, like oloyin beans and black-eyed peas, or a jollof-jambalaya hybrid that blends a West African staple with a Creole Southern dish. According to Amosu, his decision to fuse traditional and modern flavors stems from his desire to be creative while also preserving his heritage, both as a Nigerian and a Houstonian.

“Making sure the characteristics that define these dishes are preserved, regardless of how I choose to play around with the food, is important,” Amosu said. “Both from a flavor standpoint, [and] a storytelling standpoint.”

Before he could devote himself to developing ChòpnBlok, Amosu wanted to start at square one: he immersed himself in the inner workings of the restaurant industry, picking up evening shifts as a prep cook and dishwasher at Chipotle, in addition to his full-time corporate job.

“I was interested in a concept that shows tremendous scale, but also a concept that knows how to sell a bunch of rice,” Amosu said. “I had worked in restaurants before, but never with the perspective of ‘What does it take to fill one of these things?’”

Amosu also studied under home cooks to learn traditional West African recipes, and eventually began testing out his own recipes, testing them out with small dinner parties that eventually evolved into much larger events.

“The first dinner I did for 20 people, it blew my mind, how much work I put into it. It was me, cooking this stuff and putting myself out there. It felt super uncomfortable,” Amosu said. “As I would have guests attend, I wouldn’t invite them back, because I had their feedback already. But they wanted to come back. So those 20-person experiences end[ed] up becoming … big restaurant takeovers with over 100 guests.”

Amosu finally quit his corporate job and launched his first iteration of ChòpnBlok in 2021, operating out of a 670-square-foot food stall in the POST Houston. Feedback and support from Jones Business School professors were crucial, Amosu said. In addition, his education in marketing, both as an undergraduate at Truman State University and as an MBA student at Rice, helped him develop ChòpnBlok’s unique name.

“Marketing is big for me,” Amosu said. “But I struggled with the name.”

Amosu’s dilemma came from wanting to find a name that appealed to the general public while also referencing the restaurant’s West African inspiration. He latched on to the phrase ‘chopping block’ from American meat markets, and turned to West African linguistic history to give the phrase his own spin.

“When you go to anglophone West Africa, there is one language we do commonly speak across the region, which is pidgin English. In pidgin English, when someone’s hungry, they often say ‘I want chop’,” Amosu said. “So if you’re West African [and] you see ‘ChòpnBlok’, you get it, this is the location you go to eat, and if you’re not, [you know] they must have fire food or something.”

ChòpnBlok’s commitment to a cultural immersion is evident in its new brick-and-mortar location in Montrose, according to Amosu. The interior includes fresh tropical plants, vibrant colors and wallpaper by Nigerian designer Uzo Njoku.

“You come into the space, and the space itself has been intentionally created to be able to … bring you in. It’s like a big, warm African hug, right?” Amosu said. “Everything from the lime wash paint to the mud wall to symbolize some of the common architecture you’ll see there … it’s super intentional.”

Amosu’s vision for ChòpnBlok goes well beyond serving a great meal. By partnering with local organizations like Houston First and the Houston Rockets, hosting community events and offering menu items that celebrate a broader African culinary heritage, Amosu hopes to create a lasting impact — one that extends from the dinner table into the wider city.

Looking ahead, Amosu envisions expanding ChòpnBlok beyond Houston, bringing its immersive West African culinary experience to new frontiers. Yet no matter how far it grows, he intends to keep the restaurant’s foundation rooted in the rich traditions and communal spirit that inspired it all.

“We’re still in chapter one,” Amosu said. “I feel like I still have so much in me that needs to come out … My vision is bigger than just these four walls.”

---