Pioneering South Austin Restaurant 'Olivia' Closing By Early October

SOUTH AUSTIN, TX -- Another restaurant bites the dust in Austin -- home of ever-escalating rents. This time, the closure comes in the form of fine dining restaurant Olivia in South Austin.

Olivia is due to close Oct. 9, its executive chef, James Holmes, told the Austin American-Statesman. This is no ordinary closure; as the Statesman's dining critic points out, Olivia's "...was a member of the second wave of farm-to-table restaurants in Austin that opened last decade."

More accolades: The restaurant earned a Top 10 Best New Restaurant from Bon Appétit in 2009, the same year it received a glowing review from former Statesman restaurant critic Mike Sutter.

"Olivia was an early mover on South Lamar when it opened," the Statesman explains. "To get a sense of what that stretch looked like when Olivia launched: The restaurant’s neighbor was a newsstand specializing in adult magazines and videos."

The restaurant was arguably best known for its Southern comfort weekend brunches, serving corned beef hash, shrimp and grits and the quintessentially Texan "Willie Nelson" offering -- a 6-ounce chicken-fried steak with red-eye gravy, two fried eggs and herb smashed potatoes, served with a green salad and buttermilk dressing, the Statesman explained.

“Olivia has been here to watch the neighborhood, and Austin, change over the years,” Holmes told the newspaper. “What I’m most proud of is our loyal neighborhood customers and to have watched our cooks go on to do great things both in Austin and around the country.”
After the closure, Holmes, who also owns Lucy’s Fried Chicken, the flagship of which is on South Congress, will transition Olivia into a new, more casual concept. Details on this plan are forthcoming, he told the Statesman.

>>> Read the full story at Austin American-Statesman

Image: Shutterstock