Burger scene says goodbye to Bernie’s
The coronavirus pandemic has taken another beloved Houston restaurant from the dining scene. Bernie’s Burger Bus, a nearly 10-year-old business that began as a food truck and has been a fixture on Houston Chronicle critic Alison Cook’s Top 100 restaurants list, is closing operations.
The announcement affects all four Bernie’s Burger Bus restaurants, which includes locations in Katy, Missouri City and the Heights, all three of which were temporarily closed during the dine-in ban. Only the flagship restaurant at 5407 Bellaire in Bellaire has been open for curbside, takeout and patio dining. Today, that location will serve its last meals of signature burgers and hand-cut fries.
“It is with a heavy heart that I have to communicate this, but with accumulating debt, decreased sales, and the rising cost of doing business, we were starting to move into the danger zone,” owner Justin Turner said. “I was not going to be able to afford the remaining 10 of 114 staff I had left, and paying my team was more important to me than anything else.”
Turner said he worried at the beginning of the restaurant shutdown that his business would not make it through. In recent days, he said he decided to shut down the brand he built into a four-restaurant collection — the victim, he said, not just of the pandemic but his own undercapitalization of the business. Instead of taking out a loan to fund the build-out of his most recent restaurant in Missouri City, Bernie’s used its own working capital.
“If we’d taken out a loan and kept that money in the bank, we could have survived,” he said. “This situation magnifies undercapitalization to a T. We were just skating by to use our working capital to open a fourth restaurant, and in less than a year this happens. It shows, unfortunately, weaknesses in your armor.”
Turner’s announcement came, ironically, on National Hamburger Day, which was Thursday. He said he and his staff agreed to go out on a high note.
“We’re all going to leave that building with our right foot forward doing something else,” he said.
What will that something else be? Turner said he’s been looking for new culinary opportunities not just for himself but his core team.
“I will cook delicious food. What that looks like I can’t say at this point,” Turner said. “My journey is going to continue, and it’s going to continue very quickly.”
Daddy’s Burgers pop-up runs through the summer
The operators of The Dunlavy at Buffalo Bayou Park have created a pop-up burger concept that will run through Labor Day.
Daddy’s Burgers launched this week with a menu of grassfed burgers, fries, onion rings, hand-scooped milkshakes, craft beer and cocktails. The menu from chef Jane Wild will also include breakfast items such as sandwiches, breakfast tacos and beignets.
Clark Cooper Concepts, the restaurant group that operates The Dunlavy, launched the popup as a way to keep the restaurant and private events space in operation during the pandemic.
In addition to burgers, the menu will include a chopped salad, fried chicken sandwich, tater tots, fries, onion rings, milkshakes, ice cream sandwiches, a house-made brownie and drinks.
Daddy’s Burgers will open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Fridays, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturdays and 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sundays. For more information, see daddysburgershouston.com or call 713-360-6477.