{"id":423063,"date":"2026-09-01T17:28:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T17:28:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/423063\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T17:28:27","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T17:28:27","slug":"austin-restaurant-geraldines-tunes-up-for-new-annual-benefit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/423063\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin restaurant Geraldine’s tunes up for new annual benefit"},"content":{"rendered":"

After 12 years of serving Ethiopian food and culture on South Congress Avenue, Taste of Ethiopia<\/a> is preparing to close its South Austin restaurant.<\/p>\n

Owners Woinee Mariam and Solomon Hailu said the restaurant\u2019s lease expires on September 30, and they have decided not to renew it, citing the rising cost of operating a business in the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore money to pay for the employees, more money for the groceries, more money for everything you do. It’s like four times or three times more than what we used to pay four or five years ago. So it’s because of that. Everything is expensive in this area,\u201d Mariam said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSouth Congress has become very expensive. And we just \u2013 it’s beyond our means,\u201d Hailu added.<\/p>\n

The closure marks the end of more than a decade for the restaurant on South Congress, but not the end of Taste of Ethiopia. The couple\u2019s original Pflugerville restaurant will remain open, and they are already looking for another location in Austin.<\/p>\n

12 years on South Congress<\/p>\n

Mariam and Hailu first opened Taste of Ethiopia in Pflugerville, but Hailu said demand from customers eventually convinced them to expand south.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of customers do come all the way to Pflugerville, but they always asked, \u2018Hey, why don’t you open up a second one in south, you know, south of here?\u2019 And we looked into it. So we found this place, and we opened up this South Congress location 12 years ago,\u201d Hailu said.<\/p>\n

For Mariam, owning a restaurant was something she had wanted to do for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always wanted to open a restaurant. I figured that maybe that’s a sign from God for me to do that,” Mariam said.<\/p>\n

The couple said the restaurant became a way to share Ethiopian food and culture with the Austin community. Over the years, they also built relationships with generations of customers who celebrated birthdays, anniversaries, and other milestones there.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur customers are friends. We treat them like, you know, one of our family members, and that’s how they feel. Customers actually have told me that when they come here, they feel at home. They feel they’re going to a friend’s place, and I’m going to miss that,\u201d Hailu said.<\/p>\n

Mariam said some customers who first came to the restaurant years ago are now bringing another generation with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to thank them for supporting me all these years, from the beginning,” Mariam said. “They come here, they bring their kids, and kids grow up bringing their friends, their college friends, all that. I thank my customers and my employees who have been with me from the beginning and still here with me. Those are the people I want to really thank from the bottom of my heart. \u201d<\/p>\n

Rising costs take a toll<\/p>\n

The owners said the cost of doing business has changed significantly in recent years, from food and labor to rent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s really hard, especially nowadays. If you think about it, everything is so expensive. Even so, I’m trying so hard to not to put the price on my customers,\u201d Mariam said. \u201cI\u2019m paying more for everything. You\u2019re paying like three times more, what you\u2019re paying, and having to come up with more money for rent.\u201d<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Read the full story at our news partner KVUE.com<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After 12 years of serving Ethiopian food and culture on South Congress Avenue, Taste of Ethiopia is preparing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,7336,2571,584,3512,574,13473,13829],"class_list":["post-423063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-benefits","tag-fundraisers","tag-health","tag-hotels","tag-live-music","tag-musicians","tag-wellness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423063","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=423063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}