Hoover Alexander opened Hoover’s Cooking on Manor Road in October 1998. He will close his soul food restaurant to the public at the end of May.
MATTHEW ODAM/AMERICAN-STATESMAN
A living bridge connecting six decades of Austin dining history, Hoover Alexander holds a special place in the city’s culture.
The oversized teddy bear of a man with the languid baritone, who speaks with the eloquence of a poet, the encouragement of a coach, and the comfort of a minister, came up in the legendary Night Hawk in the 1970s. Twenty-five years later, he created Austin’s most identifiable soul food restaurant with his eponymous spot on Manor Road.
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Hoover Alexander has been running his popular Manor Road cafe, Hoover’s Cooking, since 1998.
American-Statesman file photo
RELATED: Hoover’s Cooking named to Statesman’s inaugural Restaurant Hall of Fame class
Hoover’s Cooking has always preached an egalitarian ethic. It’s a place where people of all colors, working blue- and white-collar jobs, have come together to dine on fried chicken, collard greens, yams, chicken-fried steak and cobbler. All taking part in Alexander’s grand vision, whether they knew it or not, to “pick up their forks and put down their swords.”
This spring, that chapter of the native Austinite’s legacy comes to a close, though the patron saint of the “cosmic pudding” that binds us all says his mission will continue.
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Alexander will close Hoover’s at the end of May, ending the restaurant’s almost-30-year run in a career that dates back more than 50 years.
The Austin High and University of Texas graduate cites slow sales, difficulty staffing and a personal pace slowed by the march of time for shuttering the restaurant located just blocks from his childhood and current home. But, Hoover the man is not done yet.
Fried chicken and collard greens have always been staples at Hoover’s Cooking.
MATTHEW ODAM/AMERICAN-STATESMAN
He’s not sure where his path will lead him: pop-up events, a line of hot sauces and honeys, public speaking, a digital series … whatever form it takes, Alexander will use the exposure to promote peace, understanding and memory-making through food and community.
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“I see a journey that parallels a spiritual journey I am working through. I still have this mission to make a difference, to be an example, to contribute beyond these four walls on Manor Road,” Alexander said while sitting in his dining room recently. “My spiritual journey is intertwined with how I want to live my life — just try to be a simple man and think about basic principles like the Golden Rule: being able to treat people with the respect and the love I want to receive.”
‘He was so welcoming of everyone.’
That kindness, exhibited in regular bear hugs with longtime regulars and destined-to-be friends, has always infused Hoover’s with a warmth of spirit as comforting as the food. People have come to the restaurant for years not just for physical sustenance but for soul-filling, whether they are a day laborer or a College Football Hall of Famer.
“If it fits in a pit, we in Texas try and smoke it,” Hoover Alexander says of his whole smoked wings.
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“He was so welcoming of everyone who would walk in there,” said former Texas Longhorns football coach Mack Brown, who started his tenure at UT in 1998, the same year Hoover’s opened.
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Hoover made rounds in the dining room, and he seemed to know everyone. “They’d stand up and it was like a greeting party at every table,” Brown said. “He treats people like they deserve to be treated. He always treated everyone special, like they were his guests.”
The lifelong East Austinite, who grew up on an unpaved Maple Avenue less than a mile from his restaurant on Manor Road, began his culinary career in 1973, working at the Night Hawk for Harry Akin, the first Austinite to integrate both the customer and staffing sides of a restaurant. Hoover started washing dishes and worked his way up through every position, eventually rising to management during his 10 years at the restaurant.
His career took him to Toulouse, Chez Fred and Good Eats Café over the next 16 years. Working with those restaurants in the early days of owners Larry Foles’ and Guy Villavaso’s restaurant empire, Alexander befriended now-legendary chef Jack Gilmore.
The future Z’Tejas executive chef and co-founder of Jack Allen’s Kitchen was working as chef at Chez Fred when Hoover was managing Good Eats Cafe around 1990.
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The menu at Hoover’s Cooking taps flavors and cooking preparations from across the state of Texas.
MATTHEW ODAM / AMERICAN-STATESMAN
“I always thought of him as a soul brother, in the true sense. He’s just a kind man. He’s always been that way. I just remember his great food and his hospitality in the dining room, and every time I saw him, he had a smile on his face, and everything was groovy,” Gilmore said. “He always wanted to learn, he was out of his comfort zone, and so was I.”
Uniquely qualified ‘to bring folks together.’
Hoover’s next move would take him right to the heart of his comfort zone. Night Hawk alumni Vernon O’Rourke partnered with Hoover to realize the chef’s longtime dream of opening Hoover’s Cooking.
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The Texas comfort food restaurant pulled influences from Hoover’s life and career: the beef culture of West Texas, seafood of the Gulf Coast, smoking traditions of Central Texas, Cajun flavors of East Texas and the soul food and Tex-Mex of his youth.
“There never would have been a Hoover’s Cooking without him,” Hoover said of O’Rourke. “We never had a formal written agreement. With just a handshake and a nod, he helped give birth to my vision with several of his credit cards and hours of sweat and labor. I am forever grateful to my Irish-American brother from Houston!”
Join Hoover Alexander and the rest of the Hoover’s Cooking family for Thanksgiving dinner between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. Thursday. Call ahead to these restaurants for reservations.
Austin 360
Located near a historically Black part of East Austin that would see major gentrification over its 28-year existence, Hoover’s sat at both the intersection of diverse culinary foodways and Austin’s past and future.
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Hoover, who attended the largely Hispanic Our Lady of the Guadalupe for elementary and middle school and experienced racial discrimination at the hands of the Austin police in his 20s and from a fellow restaurant owner in his 60s, says he has found purpose in creating community across ethnic, racial and religious lines.
“I’ve always felt like I am uniquely qualified through my life pathway to be able to bring folks together. Let’s break bread and let’s spend more time discussing what we have in common than what we have and hold differently. I think this is an important time for me to be a part of that because we’ve become so divisive now,” Alexander said. “There’s been so many things we’ve gone backwards on — self-segregating and getting real cliquish and tribal. I think if we break bread and put some food in our mouths, there’s less time to argue and fight. I want to be able to continue to be able to provide that to the community.”
A sign outside of Hoover’s Cooking displays owner Hoover Alexander’s mission statement.
MATTHEW ODAM/AMERICAN-STATESMAN
‘I’ve always wanted to be a bridge.’
Though he has mixed feelings of relief, gratitude and sadness as he closes his doors, Hoover feels good knowing there’s a talented generation of chefs pointing the scene in the right direction.
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Alexander has always wanted to represent the legacies of his past, “my time at the Night Hawk and my family’s ranch in Utley, Texas,” while creating a connection to the future, he said. “I know the scene is being left in great hands. Being able to be that bridge makes me feel really good.”
An important voice in that next generation of Black chefs in Austin is Damien Brockway. The former Uchiko and Counter 357 chef pivoted his career away from fine dining to focus on modern African American cooking with his Distant Relatives, a smoke shack and grill that traces the foodways of the African diaspora.
Distant Relatives chef-owner Damien Brockway (right), seen here with chefs Wesley Robinson (left) and Hoover Alexander (center) calls the Hoover’s founder an “Austin soul food legend.”
PROVIDED BY DAMIEN BROCKWAY
Brockway originally opened the food trailer in 2021 on far East Seventh Street, later moving it to its current location at Meanwhile Brewing. Hoover came by the trailer in its first weeks and would return a couple of times a month to check on the Connecticut native.
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The Michelin-recognized chef says the visits felt both personally and professionally meaningful, serving as something of a seal of approval from a community elder. Hoover also inspired Brockway to begin Distant Relatives’ annual Family Meal series, which brings together Black chefs from around Central Texas at the holidays to share their stories and dishes.
“He’s a soul food legend in town. Excellent food, always very consistent. And just the wealth of knowledge, he’s somebody that’s seen all these different phases and evolutions of this town,” Brockway said. “He did great, and he didn’t turn it into a tourist trap. It’s always sad when an older generation gets ready to retire. But I think he’s ready to see what the second half of life is all about.”