Friends mourn popular chef killed at home
An eatery in Spring has blossomed into the site of a memorial for a chef who was gunned down during a home invasion.
Flowers cluttered the sidewalk and a bundle of heart-shaped balloons fluttered in the light breeze Monday outside Sunny Side of the Street in Spring.
The lunch and breakfast hotspot was closed all day, but windows were plastered with Bible verses from well-wishers in the northern Harris County community.
The upscale eatery has blossomed into the site of a memorial for chef Adrianus Michael Kusuma, 33, who was gunned down during a home invasion in an affluent part of the Houston suburb Sunday night.
Just before 9 p.m., two men busted into Kusuma’s Canvasback Glen Court residence and demanded money. By the time they left, Kusuma was dead and his younger brother assaulted.
The bandana-wearing robbers fled the scene in a white car, carrying an undisclosed amount of cash.
One of the suspects is 6 feet 2 and 220 pounds and the other is around 5 feet 10 and 150 pounds, according to authorities.
Neither man has been identified and no one is in custody for the crime, a Harris County Sheriff ’s Office spokeswoman said Monday.
Originally from Indonesia, Kusuma moved to the U.S. for college, longtime family friend Danny Oswald told the Chronicle.
“He was a very good chef, a very good person. Just very kind,” Oswald said on a phone call from his current home in Iowa.
“He ran the breakfast place, but he was also a very good baker — he loved to make cakes and decorate them. He was very talented.”
After graduating from SUNY Geneseo, Kusuma went to University of Southern Maine for grad school. In the summers, he sometimes lived with Oswald. In 2013, the Kusuma family opened Sunny Side and Michael found a home in the elegant Gos-
ling Pines subdivision just minutes away from the breakfast hot spot.
“The entire family are wonderful people,” said regular customer Nick Rama, who featured Michael and his younger brother Sebastian in an article for Public News last year. “I am very sad and a bit angry that this has happened in my own backyard of Spring.”
The Kusumas were quiet, neighbors said, but they did turn up with delicious food at a block party not long after they moved in.
Police have not released a motive for the crime, but Oswald feared the brothers could have been targeted because of the business.
“He was running the restaurant and people know that at the end of the day, not all of the money goes immediately into the bank. A small restaurant like that has the proceeds from the day and on a Sunday night, they wouldn’t have been able to take it to the bank,” he said.
The shock of violence Sunday night was unusual for the area, neighbors said Monday.
“I’ve lived here since 2011, and nothing has ever happened,” said Maria Valenzuela, 41.
Valenzuela, who lives a few doors over in the same cul-de-sac as the Kusumas, said she remembers Michael as a good neighbor and a great chef.
Tammy Cameron, 47, echoed Valenzuela’s sentiments. Cameron was at home across the street at the time of shooting but said she didn’t hear a thing until officers swarmed the scene afterward.
Valenzuela said the neighbors are all “shocked” — and wondering if it’s still safe.
“I go running at 4 or 5 a.m., and I never had to worry — before last night,” she said.
Now, she doesn’t plan to go running anymore.