![\"Several](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781799610_117_.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nAfter nearly 28 years leading Hoover\u2019s Cooking and more than 40 years in Austin\u2019s restaurant industry, Hoover Alexander is ready to \u201crewire.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m not retiring, I’m rewiring,\u201d Alexander told a crowd of longtime customers, friends, local restaurateurs and musicians gathered Monday to celebrate his legacy. <\/p>\n
Alexander said Hoover\u2019s never recovered from the pandemic \u2014 both in terms of cash flow and in retaining reliable staff. He said he\u2019d \u201cthrown everything\u201d at the restaurant but still struggled to go back to the golden days.<\/p>\n
Hoover\u2019s dine-in operation closed May 31, but the restaurant isn\u2019t completely going away. Hoover\u2019s will still offer take-out meals and catering from the location at 2002 Manor Road and will continue to sell merchandise.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis business can just eat you up, and I’ve not been able to do so many things, from weddings to reunions,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to be able to enjoy some of the fruits that I’ve missed out on.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Michael Minasi<\/p>\n
\/<\/p>\n
KUT News<\/p>\n
Hoover\u2019s Cooking will continue to offer takeout, catering services and sell merchandise. <\/p>\n
Before Alexander opened Hoover\u2019s 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 \u201cdivine stirring.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cManor 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,\u201d he said. \u201cTo 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
The location inspired the restaurant\u2019s main catch phrase \u2014 visible on some of Hoover’s T-shirts and food trucks \u2014 for customers to \u201craise their forks and lower their swords.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking to the crowd of longtime Hoover\u2019s patrons, local restaurateurs and musicians, Mayor Kirk Watson presented Alexander with a proverbial \u201ckey to Austin\u201d for his work uniting a previously segregated part of the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt a time when there’s a lot of division, at a time when we are always engaging in partisan activity \u2026 What Austin and the world needs more of is the soul and the spirit of this man right here,\u201d Watson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After nearly 28 years leading Hoover\u2019s Cooking and more than 40 years in Austin\u2019s restaurant industry, Hoover Alexander…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,121804,15913,121805,121806,121807,121808,27377,121809,121810],"class_list":["post-341486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-best-austin-restaurants","tag-chicken-fried-steak","tag-hoover-alexander","tag-hoovers-cooking","tag-is-hoovers-cooking-closed","tag-manor-road","tag-mayor-kirk-watson","tag-soul-food-austin","tag-soul-food-in-austin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}