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Shady Grove - RIP

smuggs

By smuggs
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smuggs

smuggs 9,350

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A lot of great memories there. A lot of queso catfish, Tecates, music and people watching. Went on an incredibly awkward weekday lunch "first date" with my wife there, after having previously gotten "acquainted" on a night of drunken debauchery some 16 years ago. Too many t-shirts to count over the years. Fuck what a bummer.

 

shady-grove-1500-29.jpg

 

https://www.austin360.com/entertainment/20200511/shady-grove-on-barton-springs-road-closes-permanently-after-28-years-in-austin

 

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The plug has been pulled on an Austin institution after almost 30 years. Shady Grove, the pastoral comfort food restaurant that was home to the longest-running free live music series in Austin, has announced it will close permanently, effective immediately.

Shady Grove may not have been the most critically acclaimed restaurant or the city’s premiere music venue, but it was much more than the sum of its parts. With its family-friendly vibe, unfussy Southwestern comfort food and long-running Unplugged at the Grove music series, the restaurant at 1624 Barton Springs Road was a uniquely Austin treasure that felt like the city’s unofficial backyard.

Chuy’s founders Mike Young and John Zapp opened Shady Grove, with its recognizable lariat signage, in 1992, and the next year the restaurant started its music series set beneath a 100-year-old pecan tree, attracting some of the biggest names in Americana music. The series ran every Thursday from April through September, and featured acts like Ray Wylie Hubbard, Ryan Bingham, Jimmie Vaughan, Marcia Ball, Rhett Miller, Bob Schneider, Sarah Jarosz and dozens more. The combination of big names and small intimate outdoor space made Unplugged at the Grove a concert series unlike any other in town.

“We created magic there on a regular basis,” series music programmer Marsha Milam said.

Unplugged at the Grove kicked off around the time that Rusty Zagst joined the restaurant as a busboy in 1993. Twenty-seven years later Zagst, a near-daily fixture at the restaurant, serves as Shady Grover’s managing partner. In addition to the tunes, the restaurant’s patio and lawn also attracted crowds over the years for family-friendly programming that included movie screenings.

Shady Grove, along with every restaurant in Austin, closed its dining room on March 17 following dual orders by the city and county, and started takeout and delivery the following day. They continued with that model in recent weeks following Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s proclamation that restaurants could reopen to 25 percent capacity. It appears that the economic effects of the coronavirus was the final straw for the modest restaurant that sits on property appraised at approximately $5 million by the Travis County Appraisal District.

The original building at the property first operated in 1954 as Dairyland, a hamburger stand that served ice creams and custards. It became a restaurant called The Barton House in 1955 and operated the City Recreation Department in the late 50s and later as Westwood Cleaners in the 1980s. Opened in 1992, the building that houses Shady Grove was modeled after the Texas Sate Parks buildings constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps.

The land at 1624 Barton Springs Road has been in the Neelley family for at least 50 years, according to the Travis County Appraisal District. There was no immediate word on the future of the space.

 

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Brisketexan

Brisketexan 105,050

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10 minutes ago, South Austin said:

Same.  Lot of good memories there. 

I actually really liked some of their grub.  And yeah, a LOT of memories there.  Hell, remember sitting down for dinner and my infant daughter and Bruce and Kelly Robison's infant son sat beside each other playing together, giving us all a good chuckle.  And they ended being high school classmates.  Pretty cool.  Just one of many nice evenings there.

Edit: just got the text from the wife who saw the news independently:

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO."

Edited by Brisketexan
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Beantown Express 2.0

Beantown Express 2.0 6,559

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Damnit! I don't live in Austin but we always seemed to grab lunch there when I visit.  I love the Hippie Chick sandwich because my wife can't glare at me since it has so many vegetables on it.  The fries and onion rings on the side balanced the healthiness out of course..  I always liked the vibe there especially sitting outside on a nice Austin afternoon.

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mdleast

mdleast 8,289

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Damn. That was one of our go-to stops when in Austin. Glad I made it a point of going once again during our last trip to Austin in February (which as it turns out will be our last trip anywhere for the foreseeable future).

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Deej

Deej 76,751

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"Change the name Austin to Fat City. This would prevent greed heads, land rapers, and other human jackals from capitalizing on the name 'Austin'. These swine should be fucked, broken, and driven across the land."

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PantsTent

PantsTent 2,002

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45 minutes ago, 4th&Five said:

Had some great times there over the years. Started my 21st birthday there with Reckless Kelly and too many Shady Things. My first Guy Clark show was there along with both of my kiddos first concerts. 

I'll always remember taking a picture with Ray Wylie Hubbard after a show there and he said something along the lines of "oh, that's cool, I got one of those camera phones too, but all I ended up with is a bunch of pictures of my ear".

 

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Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

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1 hour ago, Deej said:

The good old days of Barton Springs Road...Shady Grove, Romeo's, Good Eats, Baby A's, Flipnotic's...

Baby A's was/is/will always be absolute garbage as far as food goes, don't care about the powerful margaritas-everybody in Austin has liquor to drink at the bar if you ask for it nicely.  But I do miss the rest of your list already.  

If you'd have told me 5 years ago that Green mesquite would outlast every other restaurant on that strip, I'd have thought you insane.  I mean yeah, Chuy's.  But in terms of one-off joints in Austin.  

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Napoleon

Napoleon 8,660

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As the Frenchies would say...

"C'est la vie!"


When I returned to UT in the mid-'90s, I was under the impression that it had been around for decades at that point. I didn't realize it was a new kid on the block.

I definitely ate there once, maybe twice. I liked the ambience and the Airstream.

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South Austin

South Austin 52,442

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9 hours ago, Lobo said:

If you'd have told me 5 years ago that Green mesquite would outlast every other restaurant on that strip, I'd have thought you insane.  I mean yeah, Chuy's.  But in terms of one-off joints in Austin.  

Confession, and one that belongs in the Unpopular food opinions thread:  

I love Green Mesquite.

I’ve been going there since college, long before the advent of high-quality BBQ. I’d go with my parents when they visited me at school, and when I was a newlywed living in the Kinney Avenue area my then-wife and I would often walk down there on a Saturday morning for Shiners and lunch. We’d eventually take our kids when we moved to Northwest Hills, and the staff got to know our family, so much so that one of the waitresses would bring me a cold beer as soon as I sat down without me having to ask. And after I divorced my wife, I still took my kids there occasionally, and a couple of the staff were visibly upset at the breakup of my family.

I recognize there is vastly better BBQ in Austin. But Green Mesquite is my Las Manitas.  I thought Las Manitas was shitty food served with usually dirty flatware, and never understood the sentiment or the sadness over its closure.  But I also never had any real personal connection to that place. I do for Green Mesquite, and also accept that it should be high on the list of places in danger of not surviving the quarantine.

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Guest Lobo

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Totally get it.  We still pop in there every 2-3 years when there's a band playing that reminds us of when we started dating in 2000.  Food is decent enough, doesn't need to be looked down upon.  My only point was, and I realize this is a strange comparison, Barton Springs was like the Mulberry Street of Austin restaurants for two+ generations.  We're left with a half-assed Chuy's, some food trucks, and Green Mesquite.  Don't get me wrong, I like Juliet and there's promise in that new Ski Shores.  I'm guilty of old-Austin mourners to get the hell over it, things change.  But this little strip changing up so much is weird I guess, because we live so close to it.  Most old-Austin whiners do so from tens or hundreds of miles away, this is just a 15-minute bike ride for us.  /csb   Anyway RIP, Shady. 

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South Austin

South Austin 52,442

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7 minutes ago, dingleberryswitzer said:

This sums it up for me.  These restaurants where the ambience is half the appeal had no chance to survive just doing takeout.  

Nor will they survive even after the regulations allowed restaurants to open to in-person dining.  Great patio seating on a beautiful spring Austin day doesn't mean shit for your revenue if you can only operate at 25% capacity.  The overhead costs don't justify that. 

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SizzleChest

SizzleChest 8,283

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11 hours ago, South Austin said:

Confession, and one that belongs in the Unpopular food opinions thread:  

I love Green Mesquite.

I’ve been going there since college, long before the advent of high-quality BBQ. I’d go with my parents when they visited me at school, and when I was a newlywed living in the Kinney Avenue area my then-wife and I would often walk down there on a Saturday morning for Shiners and lunch. We’d eventually take our kids when we moved to Northwest Hills, and the staff got to know our family, so much so that one of the waitresses would bring me a cold beer as soon as I sat down without me having to ask. And after I divorced my wife, I still took my kids there occasionally, and a couple of the staff were visibly upset at the breakup of my family.

I recognize there is vastly better BBQ in Austin. But Green Mesquite is my Las Manitas.  I thought Las Manitas was shitty food served with usually dirty flatware, and never understood the sentiment or the sadness over its closure.  But I also never had any real personal connection to that place. I do for Green Mesquite, and also accept that it should be high on the list of places in danger of not surviving the quarantine.

I would go to Green Mesquite for lunch once a week in the 90s.  Always saw Bob Bullock there sucking down iced tea with his one lung.

My work crowd enjoyed the place and that's why I went.  I didn't like it at first, but I came to enjoy it over time. Only ate BBQ a few times, other than sausage wrap.  There were limited cajun options near work, so the greasy jambalaya was a staple as were the tacos.

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smuggs

smuggs 9,350

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3 hours ago, Deej said:

Shady Grove will always have a place in my heart. Had a second date there, and she asked me to fuck her in the ass when I took her home that evening. 

Hope she didn’t have the green chili cheese fries.

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billfromlaketravis

billfromlaketravis 11,447

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Shady Grove and Threadgill's were good places to take parents that hadn't spent much time in Austin. The tag along dinners where a friend's parents paid were the best in college. 

If my memory serves me correctly, I usually ordered the Truckstop Meatloaf or Green Chile Chicken Fried Steak at Shady Grove. It was pretty solid. Beat the s*** out of hamburger helper or mac and cheese with hot dogs. 

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ftf82

ftf82 485

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Posted (edited)
On 5/12/2020 at 7:21 AM, South Austin said:

Confession, and one that belongs in the Unpopular food opinions thread:  

I love Green Mesquite.

I’ve been going there since college, long before the advent of high-quality BBQ. I’d go with my parents when they visited me at school, and when I was a newlywed living in the Kinney Avenue area my then-wife and I would often walk down there on a Saturday morning for Shiners and lunch. We’d eventually take our kids when we moved to Northwest Hills, and the staff got to know our family, so much so that one of the waitresses would bring me a cold beer as soon as I sat down without me having to ask. And after I divorced my wife, I still took my kids there occasionally, and a couple of the staff were visibly upset at the breakup of my family.

I recognize there is vastly better BBQ in Austin. But Green Mesquite is my Las Manitas.  I thought Las Manitas was shitty food served with usually dirty flatware, and never understood the sentiment or the sadness over its closure.  But I also never had any real personal connection to that place. I do for Green Mesquite, and also accept that it should be high on the list of places in danger of not surviving the quarantine.

The smoked chicken wings from Green Mesquite are still outstanding. And you can get a Shiner in a frosty schooner. Ergo, Green Mesquite gets a pass.

Edited by ftf82
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