It’s been a bad year for iconic old restaurants around here, hasn’t it? La Jaliscience, New Orleans Po Boy, and now the venerable Pig Stands all have joined or are in danger of joining the choir invisible.
It’s reputed to be the world’s first drive-through restaurant chain and the place where the onion ring was invented, the result of a cooking accident. In 82 years at the corner of Washington and Sawyer, the last remaining Houston location has been a hut, a collection of stalls served by carhops and a sit-down restaurant.
But now, the Pig Stand’s past looks rosier than its present. The city’s longest-running restaurant sat empty Monday, a victim of bankruptcy and back taxes that threaten to add it to the ever-growing list of bygone Houston institutions.
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The health-unconscious eatery shut down last Wednesday along with two other locations in San Antonio.
They are the last vestiges of a chain that started in 1921 in Dallas as the first drive-through and grew into a dozens-strong regional empire that welcomed the age of fast food during a time when meals were handcrafted at home.
The stands evolved into drive-ins by the 1960s, when they dueled Prince’s in the Houston market. Both eventually became standard table-service restaurants as they ceded the fast food business to the large chains.
Eventually, only Pig Stand No. 7 on Washington survived in Houston. Outside of town, it’s best known as a location for the book and movie The Evening Star, author Larry McMurtry’s Houston-themed sequel to Terms of Endearment.
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The most recent bankruptcy court filings showed Texas Pig Stands Inc. was more than $3.2 million in debt with less than $1 million in assets.
Unpaid taxes caused the state to lose patience this summer. In August, the Texas Attorney General’s Office asked a San Antonio judge to convert the case to a Chapter 7 liquidation from a Chapter 11 reorganization.
“The court has given this debtor more than enough chances,” Assistant Attorney General Kay D. Brock wrote. “Enough is enough.”
Brock repeated the call for liquidation last week, demanding payment of more than $200,000 in sales tax to the state comptroller’s office.
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Bankruptcy trustee Vincent Liuzza said the company was unable to borrow funds in time to avert closure. Now he’s trying to reopen the restaurant in Houston along with the two San Antonio locations, all of which sit on leased land.
The company didn’t expect forced closures when it defaulted with the state on Nov. 7, Liuzza said.
“The next day, the comptroller’s enforcement people showed up at each restaurant … seized all the cash in the restaurants, stayed there and collected the money from the guests as they paid their bills, took the money out of the safe and the cash register and took the licenses,” he said.
Risking fines of $500 a day for continued operations, Liuzza said he believed it was worth keeping the last three stores open. But when the comptroller’s office balked at a settlement plan last week, Liuzza said he was left with no choice but to close.
“I’m negotiating with them to get them to change their mind and permit us to reopen – even if it’s on a temporary basis – to protect that value for our creditors, which include the state,” Liuzza said.
He’s hopeful the Houston store will be revived.
“It’s been improving very nicely under new management there. And that manager wants to buy the restaurant. She’s done a terrific job,” said Liuzza, who added he’s working on the possibility of arranging financing that could allow Carver to buy the Washington store.
“Sales just go up every week almost. So she’s turning it around. She can make money,” he said.
The story was first reported last week in the Express News. I confess, for all the times I said to myself “I need to eat there”, I never did. Now I need to hope that the Pig Stand can find its way out of bankruptcy so that I can have another chance. Good luck, y’all.