Food-o-File
Food Editor Virginia B. Wood weighs in with her thoughts about the Schlotzsky's magnate John Wooley and his brother's plans for downtown.
By Virginia B. Wood, Fri., June 7, 2002
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
In 1989, home-grown restaurateur Reed Clemons sunk a large chunk of money into an old building on Colorado Street between Third and Fourth as a location for his second local eatery. Mezzaluna became a downtown hot spot, where Austinites went to see and be seen drinking in the busy bar and enjoying Italian food in the dining room around the wood-fired pizza oven. The popularity of that restaurant was a significant factor in the development of what we now know as the "warehouse district." Encouraged by Clemons' success, other restaurants and bars began opening in the neighborhood. After the Legislature changed the laws regulating brewing in Texas in 1993, Billy Forrester opened the Waterloo Brewing Company in the long-abandoned Bradford Paint building at the corner of Fourth and Guadalupe. The next month, Clemons debuted the Bitter End Brewpub across the street from Mezzaluna in a former antiques warehouse at 311 Colorado.
It's safe to say that many of the properties in what eventually became known as the warehouse district were not generating much in the way of rental income before local entrepreneurs such as Reed Clemons, Billy Forrester, Stan Adams, and Sinclair Black put their money on the line to develop the area into a neighborhood worthy of real estate speculation. As we know, Forrester's reward for increasing the value of the property he occupied for nine years at Fourth and Guadalupe was to have his rent quadrupled last fall, putting the Waterloo out of business. Later this year, a generic chain brewpub will take over that space.
The newest piece of bad news for the neighborhood is that Schlotzsky's magnate and downtown landlord John Wooley and his brother have a deal in the works. The Wooleys plan to sell their properties in the 300 block of Colorado to an out-of-state development company that would replace the Bitter End and the large parking lot just to its south with an exclusive boutique hotel. Reed Clemons and some of the other business owners in the area are understandably not enthusiastic about the new plan but Clemons is in a position where he's damned if he fights his landlord too hard and condemned to losing his business if he doesn't. If the Wooleys have their way, the warehouse district loses yet another locally owned attraction in addition to forfeiting vital parking space, not to mention the prospect of a couple more years of construction-related inconvenience and street closings for would-be customers. All this destruction for the benefit of a few more hotel rooms which may or may not be full often enough to increase the over-all customer base of businesses in the area. Replacing unique local businesses that are the neighborhood's genuine attractions with too many of the same restaurants and hotels travelers can find in Anywhere, USA, is a bad idea for Austin. This new plan is a punishment business owners in the warehouse district don't deserve.
OOPS
When we published the results of our annual Restaurant Poll in the May 24 issue, G&M Steakhouse received an honorable mention in the "Place We Wish Were Still Open" category in the Readers Poll. In fact, G&M Steakhouse (626 N. Lamar) is still open, every day, from 7am-4pm. However, from 5-11pm on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, the cuisine at G&M Steakhouse changes to a Vietnamese menu, which still operates under the G&M Steakhouse name.
