Food news roundup.

A few small bits of food news I’ve been meaning to get to:

Sam’s BBQ has closed. Maybe temporarily, maybe permanently, nobody seems to know for sure.

Sam’s is a fairly famous East Austin barbecue joint, perhaps best known as Stevie Ray Vaughn’s favorite. We ate there once for an SDC, and I was not impressed.

The Abuelo’s TexMex chain and their parent company, Food Concepts International, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

If memory serves, there was an Abuelo’s over near Barton Creek Mall that I ate at a few times. There’s also one in Tulsa within walking distance of the hotel that the S&WCA uses. I remember thinking it was pretty decent TexMex.

I did not know:

Pappas Restaurants purchased On the Border after the latter filed for bankruptcy. Brava Brio Restaurants also filed for bankruptcy—its second time this year.

I thought On the Border was a Brinker Group restaurant, but apparently I’m way behind: Brinker sold them off in 2010 to “Golden Gate Capital” who sold them in 2014 to “Argonne Capital Group”.

Brava Brio runs “Bravo! Italian Kitchen” and “Brio Tuscan Grille”. We used to have a Brio up at the Arboretum (used to have an On the Border up there, too) and we went there a few times with Lawrence. I always thought the food was good, but a little bit pricy. The Brio closed a few years back, and I disremember what’s in there now.