After nearly 28 years leading Hoover’s Cooking and more than 40 years in Austin’s restaurant industry, Hoover Alexander is ready to “rewire.”
“I’m not retiring, I’m rewiring,” Alexander told a crowd of longtime customers, friends, local restaurateurs and musicians gathered Monday to celebrate his legacy.
Alexander said Hoover’s never recovered from the pandemic — both in terms of cash flow and in retaining reliable staff. He said he’d “thrown everything” at the restaurant but still struggled to go back to the golden days.
Hoover’s dine-in operation closed May 31, but the restaurant isn’t completely going away. Hoover’s will still offer take-out meals and catering from the location at 2002 Manor Road and will continue to sell merchandise.
Alexander said taking a step back from the grind of daily dine-in service will allow him to focus on his health and have more work-life balance.
“This business can just eat you up, and I’ve not been able to do so many things, from weddings to reunions,” he said. “I want to be able to enjoy some of the fruits that I’ve missed out on.”
Michael Minasi
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KUT News
Hoover’s Cooking will continue to offer takeout, catering services and sell merchandise.
Before Alexander opened Hoover’s in 1998, he was willing to move as far south as Corpus Christi to open his own spot. He said finding the location on Manor Road was a “divine stirring.”
“Manor Road was significant growing up as a kid, because it was divided by Black and white racially, and also divided by, to a degree, socioeconomic differences,” he said. “To be able to be in this place when we need even more than ever to bring people together? Like, wow, I was supposed to be here.”
The location inspired the restaurant’s main catch phrase — visible on some of Hoover’s T-shirts and food trucks — for customers to “raise their forks and lower their swords.”
Speaking to the crowd of longtime Hoover’s patrons, local restaurateurs and musicians, Mayor Kirk Watson presented Alexander with a proverbial “key to Austin” for his work uniting a previously segregated part of the city.
“At a time when there’s a lot of division, at a time when we are always engaging in partisan activity … What Austin and the world needs more of is the soul and the spirit of this man right here,” Watson said.