A quick news roundup:
Encounter has closed. No, that wasn’t an Austin restaurant, so why does anyone care? Well, Encounter was also known as “the restaurant in the Theme building at the LA Airport”. Or you might know the “Theme building” better as “that kind of spider-like thing”:
Austin CultureMap has a somewhat interesting article on the Waterloo Ice House chain, tied to their recent closing of three locations. We actually had a family dinner at the Bee Caves location shortly before their closing, and I had breakfast with a friend at the 38th Street location a little before that.
The problem, as I see it, isn’t “company-owned” versus “independent”; the problem is that Waterloo doesn’t offer a compelling experience. The food is just average, and the breakfast I mentioned stretched out to more than an hour; not because the service was bad, but because it took forever for the food to come out of the kitchen. (And, to be honest, I’ve had more than one bad service experience at the Burnet Road location, too.)
Finally, French Quarter Grill in Round Rock is closed. We were planning to eat there this weekend, as I’d bought some Restaurant.com gift certificates. Some may recall that there was a Gumbo’s in that location for a long time, and that the Gumbo’s ostensibly moved because the rent went up and the building was historic (which precluded them from making alterations that might have justified the higher rent). French Quarter Grill moved in shortly after Gumbo’s moved out. And are they closing for the same reasons?
No. Apparently, they’re closing because the historic building has been acquired by the city, which plans to demolish it for a new bridge. That’s kind of a “say what?” moment.
(We’re going to the Parmer location of French Quarter instead. And they’ve said that they are going to honor the Restaurant.com certificate, even though it was specifically for the Round Rock location. That’s nice.)