The final chapter in the Hobby airport food battle reveals potential job cuts and more references to the famous Houston chef.

HOUSTON – The fight between the two heavyweights continued on Tuesday during a City Council meeting over a lucrative concession contract at Hobby Airport.

In one corner is the hometown beloved by many, Pappas. In the other corner is an out-of-town challenger from Miami named Districts.

Pappas’ goal on Tuesday was to convince enough board members to vote against and cancel the deal in favor of his opponent.

For Areas, this was done to defend their modest contract win ahead of Wednesday’s vote.

The districts defeated Papps by a narrow margin in the initial presentations, but the formal approval process has since been described by one council member as a “mess”.

Questions have since arisen about the legality of what Areas submitted in its application. In particular, they called the famous chef from Houston their “culinary consultant.”

The chef is Chris Shepherd, who told KPRC 2 Investigates last week that he was not part of the Areas team.

On Tuesday, Areas North America CEO Carlos Bernal confirmed the same information to the city council, answering “no” when asked if there was a contract with Shepherd.

At the end of his comment to the council, Bernal went on to refer to a future relationship with Shepard.

“We will be good partners with the community and we will continue to work with Chris Shepherd and Southern Smoke so you have our 100% commitment,” said Bernal.

After that, some members of the council were in no mood to speak, but one did speak out.

“It’s all smoke and mirrors, he’s putting it all together to make it look like Chris Shepherd is working with him because they screwed up the process with the evaluators by making them believe that Chris Schfers is part of their program,” council member Michael Kubosh said. . .

During the exchange between Bernal and council member Abby Kamin, potential job cuts also came to light.

A fireplace in front of a room filled with Pappas employees asked, “How many employees can you staff with your capabilities?”

Bernal replied, “200,” to which, seconds later, Kamin added, “But you just said you only have the capacity to accommodate 200 people and you have 400 staff.”

KPRC 2 Investigates did call Bernal after the hearing, trying to find out more about the future of concession jobs at Hobby and his latest comments regarding Shepard, but his phone went unanswered.

The battle will make a decision on Wednesday when a vote is scheduled.

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