Austin360 blogs > Dale's Table > Archives > 2008 > June
June 2008
Castle Hill to close
Castle Hill Cafe, the restaurant that became famous as Austin’s affordable fine-dining spot, is closing at the end of this month after more than two decades in business because it has become too expensive to operate a fine-dining venue.
“It’s too hard, to be honest, way too hard for us,” owner Cathe Dailey said Thursday. With food and gas prices soaring, it seems like each day brings another cost increase in one or more items, she said.
Plus, the downtown dining scene has changed dramatically in recent years.
“The demographic has changed so much around us,” Dailey said. “Eighteen years ago when we moved into this building, we were considered on the edge of town. Now downtown is surrounding us with condominiums.”
Those new residents, motivated by DWI laws that encourage people to avoid drinking and driving, “are looking for neighborhood restaurants they can call their own,” she said.
So Daily is closing Castle Hill on June 28 and taking at least a month for a major makeover of the place before reopening the space at 1101 W. Fifth St. as Corazon, an interior Mexican restaurant with a full-service bar and lounge.
“It’s been the greatest ride,” Dailey said. “I’m not horribly sentimenal about it. It’s another side of the coin for me. We sort of returning to our roots as a place that’s more afforadable, more available to more people.”
See more details in the story in Friday’s American-Statesman Business section.
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Salmonella still causing illnesses
A half-dozen new cases of salmonella linked to tomatoes were reported by the New York City Health Department today, bringing the total number of Big Apple cases to seven. An agency official said she wouldn’t be surprised to see more cases reported in coming days, Bloomberg.com reported. According to the Food & Drug Administration, salmonella linked to tomatoes has been confirmed in nearly 280 cases in 28 states and Washington, D.C., with the most — nearly 70 — in Texas.
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Multiple tomato hits
Texas French Bread is a perfect example of the multiple ways in which restaurants are affected by the problem of a potential salmonella contamination of tomatoes.
Today, the restaurant posted signs on its menu bulletin board notifying customers that fresh tomatoes were taken off the sandwiches and that no salsa or pasta salad, both made with fresh, raw tomatoes, were available.
That just shows how pervasive raw tomatoes are in today’s restaurant business.
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Tomato precaution
Many restaurants are continuing to take the precaution of removing uncooked Roma and large tomatoes from their menus while state and federal agencies investigate an outbreak of salmonella linked to tomatoes.
“We have taken all but the cherry tomatoes off the menu until we can get certification that they are safe,” Chez Zee owner Sharon Watkins reported this morning.
That’s what Eastside Cafe owners Dorsey Barger and Elaine Martin, for example, did when they learned of the concern about salmonella linked to tomatoes in a nine-state region that includes Texas.
According to the state health department, consumers should avoid eating raw Roma or full-sized tomatoes until investigators pinpoint the source of the contamination. Homegrown tomatoes or ones that are still attached to a vine are safe to eat, officials said, because they are not implicated in this outbreak.
author=Dale Rice author_email=drice@statesman.com
