A casual and family friendly Houston restaurant has unexpectedly shut its doors for good after just three months in business. Jax on the Tracks in Houston’s Garden Oaks neighborhood is now permanently closed.
“We thought we had a great idea for what the neighborhood really wanted in a little bit more family friendly, much more casual, lower-price-point eatery,” Gr8 Plate Hospitality owner Paul Miller told Chron on Tuesday. “In the short period of time … we just had to make a financial decision. Unfortunately, we weren’t meeting certain benchmarks that we had set for ourselves and had to make the difficult decision to close.”
For 10 years, Gr8 Plate Hospitality had a presence at that Garden Oaks address with The Union Kitchen. But according to Miller, sales at that Union Kitchen had been pretty flat for nearly two years. So, Miller took a chance on refreshing the space with his Jax brand, opening its doors in February.
“What we thought was that The Union Kitchen menu either wasn’t striking the right chord with our guests food wise or price wise, one of the two, so we decided to attack it from the position of both,” Miller explained.
What that looked like was a blend of Union Kitchen favorites with items from the less expensive Jax brand, which has been part of the Houston dining scene since 1993. Those Jax menu items included fajitas, burgers and hot dogs.
But during its brief run, the concept never built the steady clientele needed to sustain itself, especially inside a sprawling, 5,000-square-foot space that drew plenty of bar regulars but left a relatively empty dining room.
“Unfortunately, the high rent, the increasing food prices, the cost of labor and the lack of customers, that’s the holy trinity or the perfect tornado of closing a restaurant,” Miller said. “It’s a difficult market for a lot of people. My decision a year ago or two years ago was, ‘Let’s keep this going. Let’s try keep trying to figure out a way, let’s see what we can do.’ And this economy, you just can’t. Rent continues to increase, the commodities are going up. It’s just an unfortunate financial position that I’ve been put in.”
Though this is the end of Gr8 Plate Hospitality’s run in the Ella Plaza space, they’re not giving up on the goal of bringing another restaurant to the Houston area.
“Once we consolidate and we figure everything out and we get where we need to be, then we’re going to look for another spot to grow our company. Whether it’s organically—meaning our current concepts—or buying something else and running that … we want to continue to grow.”