Trudy’s Tex-Mex closes one of two remaining locations, but says it is looking to expand

One of Austin's longest running Tex-Mex chains is near extinction, but promising a renaissance.

The Trudy's Tex-Mex restaurant empire has been whittled down to one location after its South Star location at Little Texas Lane and Interstate 35 closed on Monday. The closure leaves only the Trudy's North Star at Burnet Road and U.S. 183.

The Austin chain was purchased by a venture capital firm in 2020

Trudy's, which originally opened in 1977, was purchased out of bankruptcy in 2020 for $6.5 million by North Carolina-based venture capital firm Hargett Hunter Capital Management. The company said at the time of the acquisition — which included three Trudy's locations (a fourth closed in 2019) and South Congress Cafe — that it intended to grow the brand across Texas and the country.

But there have only been closures since that time. At the time of the purchase, Hargett Hunter stated that it intended reopen the University of Texas campus-area location at 409 W. 30th St. that had been temporarily shuttered. But after the acquisition, the company decided that damage to the property from a previous fire and vandals, along with issues around the building encroaching on property lines with the city, made reopening unviable.

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The company sold the 30th Street property in 2022, and it is currently listed for lease, though a representative for Hargett Hunter said the company is actively looking for a new location in the area.

The new Trudy's owners also closed South Congress Cafe in 2021 after an 18-year run and converted it into coastal Mexican restaurant Trudy's Del Mar, but that restaurant only lasted about a year.

New CEO says Trudy's is 'eyeing new locations' around Austin

Trudy's, which is operating with a new CEO who has been with the company for a month, released a statement saying that, despite its Austin-area closures, the company is "eyeing new locations around the Austin metro area, along with expansion into the Houston and San Antonio markets."

“We have looked at multiple options to keep this location open, but the economics and changes in the immediate shopping area unfortunately do not work,” Trudy's CEO Scott Taylor said in a release. 

Hargett Hunter sold the South Star property to a company registered as UpStreet Trudy's LLC in 2022.