Texas loses a landmark to COVID-19

[TexasTowelie]

After 83 years, downtown Huntsville’s Cafe Texan has been a destination for locals and travelers of the Lone Star State, as Texas’ oldest cafe to remain in the same location without ever closing – until now.

“It’s a real tragedy that we had to close it down,” Cafe Texan owner John Strickland said. “When I closed up because of COVID-19, I had not intended to close it permanently.”

Strickland announced Cafe Texan’s permanent closure on the business’ Facebook page Wednesday morning. The news came as a shock to many.

The cafe owner had opted to remain closed for the majority of the past five months for the safety of his customer base, majorly consisting of senior citizens, and his staff. However, Strickland had every intent to open when the time was right.

Cafe Texan’s demise came quickly following an effort to save some money every month while the restaurant sat empty. It started with a request to have the city remove a dumpster that cost around $400 a month to have outside of the building. According to Strickland, he was told that he had to have the water turned off for the building in order to have the dumpster removed.

“When I turned the water off, they considered the place closed, and at that point it was not grandfathered, which meant that to open it back up, I was going to have to spend about $80,000 dollars on the kitchen,” Strickland said. With a kitchen built in 1913, it was far too small for the seating capacity, not meeting modern day codes for opening a restaurant.

Read more: https://www.itemonline.com/news/local_news/texas-loses-a-landmark-to-covid-19/article_66084342-cfb3-55ab-8224-1491c2c3536e.html
(Huntsville Item)

[soothsayer]

1. Well that's mean, can't they stop acting petty and grandfather it?

[Susan Calvin]

2. That is so wrong.

Is there anything that can be done about it?