This three-part series looks at the reinvention of South Lamar. In part one, Rob Patterson looks at the boulevard's car-culture history and changes that are being felt today; part two below examines how businesses may fare through the transformation; and part three takes a longer view towards what the boulevard may become.
A Street Unstuck in Heavy Traffic
The good news on Lamar is that despite the now-constant flow of cars and bumper-to-bumper gridlock during the a.m. and p.m. rush hours, business seems to be robust along the boulevard. Maudie’s reports a 10 percent-or-so increase in sales over the last few years. Maudie's Tex-Mex owner Joe Draker feels the upturn “does have to do with some of the added traffic.”
His chain’s operations manager Joe Ruhoff echoes his assessment. “I believe that all the new energy and additional businesses have helped our location and other [Lamar businesses]. There’s a different synergy than there was five to 10 years ago. Our South Lamar store definitely has stronger business from 8:30 p.m. until our closing around 10:30 most of the week. We’ve seen more foot traffic and increased business.”
The Saxon Pub had a record first 2012 quarter. Red’s Porch, which opened in late 2009 near the southern end of the stretch, has been doing bang-up business. Both Thundercloud locations are “strong stores,” reports Cotton, even though the one at Lamar and Manchaca now has recently-opened competition from such neighbors as the Juicebox & Soup Peddler (Thundercloud also serves soups and smoothies), Papalote Taco House and Phil's Icehouse.
But for businesses and shoppers, traffic can be daunting. “You would think more traffic, more people, but no,” notes Gigi Greco, who opened The G Spot Thrift Shop just south of Oltorf last October. “When somebody driving by misses it, they miss it, because they see it at the last minute. They just don’t want to turn around because the traffic is so bad. By the time you see my sign it’s too late.”
Making left turns into and out of the many businesses that line the street “has always been a challenge,” notes South Austin Music's Bill Welker. He’s not feeling the benefit others are reaping from a more active road. “2010 and 2011 were pretty lean years. Thank God I’m established and existed through that. This year’s going a little bit better and I have hopes that it’s going to continue to go better.”
But he’s not alone in understanding the issues the traffic presents. “Sometimes it takes me six or seven minutes to turn left into the place,” says Leea Mechling, director of the South Austin Museum of Popular Culture.
Greco encounters the same going in and out of her store. “It can take me eight minutes sitting there just to turn left on Lamar.” She lives nearby just off Barton Skyway. “It takes me forever to get home and it should take three minutes.”
The soon-to-open Post South Lamar complex required underground utility upgrades that left only one southbound lane open in front of South Austin Music during business hours for a number of months earlier this year. “The construction has caused traffic to be congested and that’s made it hard for people to get into my parking lot,” Welker says. Mechling says the same.
Getting in and out calls for some creativity on a busy street with determined drivers. "Do like I do and start inching your way into the street," Welker advises. "Pull on out and they ain’t gonna hit you." One hopes.... "That’s what I had to do the other day with the lane blocked." There has to be a better way, right?
“It’s the price you pay for progress, unfortunately,” adds The Saxon Pub's Joe Ables, whose nighttime business was less affected by the work and closures. Future large projects will likely require more lane-closing utility work, and materials deliveries and construction will also impede traffic flow. Can Lamar maintain its burgeoning new vibrancy as density and traffic continue to grow and not reach a slowdown tangle that starts to stifle business?
Kerbey Lane Cafe’s Unplanned Upgrade for The Future
Prior to the mid 1990s, there were only a few places in town to get a good local restaurant meal after 10 p.m. One was the 24-hour Kerbey Lane Cafe on the west side of Lamar just north of the Manchaca intersection – the second location to open in what is now a chain of five restaurants.
At the end of January, it hopped across the boulevard and southward into a new space nearly twice the size with an outdoor patio. The relocation was “forced on us,” explains director of operations Mason Ayer. “We’d been in the building for over 25 years and had every intention on staying there.”
However, the facility was in dire need of an upgrade and rehab to overcome systemic issues that slowed wait times for tables and food service as well as hurting the ambience. When the lease came up for renewal, “We talked to the landlord and said, hey, we want to stick around but the building is falling apart. Utilities are maxed out, the roof needs to be replaced, the parking lot needs to be resurfaced,” Ayer recounts. In lease renewal negotiations, Kerbey Lane proposed to “cover a large portion of the costs for the improvements to the property.” They asked the owner to fund a lesser share.
The landlord didn’t go for the plan and wanted what Ayer says was an “unreasonable amount of rent. We came to an impasse.” So Kerbey Lane bugged out for new nearby quarters “and in the process accomplished what we wanted to accomplish, which was more parking, better and cleaner facilities, a larger kitchen. And I think our guest experience has gotten a lot better. And our sales are a lot better, up about 65 percent. All of us were worried that sales would either stay flat or barely increase. So the change is very welcome.”
Ironically, switching sides of the street and the northbound morning commute traffic snarl has created a potential opportunity, Ayer thinks. “When they get to our little shopping center and are frustrated because they can’t get to work, they can just make a nice right turn into Kerbey Lane and a right turn out and be on their merry way with coffee and pancakes to go.”
Austin Institution Arrives with Long-Desired Second Store
At some point in April or May of 2013, Wheatsville Food Co-Op will open a new location in the Lamar Oaks Plaza. Its shopping space will be nearly double that of its Guadalupe store and will feature amenities like an artisan bakery and cafe seating for eating in.
The iconic Austin grocery has long planned to add a second store. “I got here in ’98 and I think people had been talking about it for 20 years already,” notes general manager Dan Gillotte. South Austin was the primary target for expansion.
It lands on Lamar at this pivotal juncture. "We definitely have been aware of the changes that are coming to South Lamar. We just figured we’d fit in and anchor that end that isn’t super local friendly and put a little marker down for local independent business,” says Gillotte. “That will actually help connect the little pockets of local up and down South Lamar and be powerful and beneficial for local [businesses] and the things that people like about Austin and keeping Austin weird and whatnot. We like that part of that. We feel like we can anchor that strip in a positive way.”
Can South Lamar Support & Sustain Funky Local Start-Ups?
Greco decided to open The G Spot after many years working in music publicity and promotion and on musical video projects. By past evidence, it seemed a natural fit on Lamar.
The street used to host a number of vintage vendors. A notable one was Flashback, now on South First, that thrived on Lamar from 1982 until 2006, attracting famed customers such as Bob Dylan, Johnny Depp, Kate Moss and Lyle Lovett as well as dressing many local musicians and other Austinites in fashionable duds from the past. The rickety old house where it did business – and where one of the city’s first cuisine food trailers, Flip Happy Crepes, started up out back – was torn down to make way for Olivia.
Today The G Spot stands alone as a thrift shop on South Lamar. And trying to make a go of it with a business that used to work on the boulevard is a challenge for Greco. “I’m worried,” she confesses. “My lease is up next March and I don’t know what I am going to do.” She would like to remain on the street. “There are places where you look that have been vacant for years, but they won’t come down on price.”
Location, Location, Location… & Promotion
When life and survival here was far cheaper some two decades in the past, businesses along South Lamar could afford to be as laid back as the Austin vibe of legend. Now that the money game is being played with major league scratch all along the boulevard, what also pays off is meeting the new realities head on.
And what better way to try to keep pace with the changes and newcomers arriving on street than to foster a neighborhood spirit and say hey, welcome, we’re all here together. “There’s 300 apartments getting ready to open immediately south of us,” says Ables. “I talked with the developer today, and the reason I did is that I also talked with a lot of my fellow neighbors from Maudie’s to Genie [Car Wash] to Abbey [Printing], all these folks. We’re going to give out a welcome package for all the new tenants. I’m thinking of doing a one-month free pass to the Saxon. Come on over, let’s get acquainted and go from there.”
He sees an additional benefit in inviting his new neighbors to stroll on over to wet their whistles and enjoy some songs. "In these times, when people are getting nailed right and left for DWIs, I’m looking forward to having people who can walk over and stumble home."
Greco may be worried whether her new venture will fly. But she’s not giving up without more than a college try. “I’ve started putting furniture out on the lawn facing Lamar and that’s really helped. It’s amazing what furniture will do. They don’t buy furniture but they come into the store. It’s been unbelievable, like night and day. So my business just started picking up because of that,” she says.
Perhaps the furniture gives off a welcoming whiff of hominess. “Or they think it’s a yard sale,” counters Greco. Which would also imply that even though drivers are on a busy and congested roadway, they are still in something of a neighborhood. South Lamar was a neighborhood even in its more proletariat-meets-boho past. As residential development brings more residents onto the boulevard, that fact seems to provide a foundation for the street to become even more of a cohesive community.
But as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus observed, “Change is the only constant.” Businesses that remain will have to adapt or be left behind, and may even be flattened in the metaphorical traffic.
Kerbey Lane lucked out by moving and improving when it did.
“As South Austin becomes more and more… I don’t know if gentrified is the right word, but as income levels increase in the 78704 zip code, I think what might have appealed to residents of 78704 in the ‘80s in our old building might have changed vis-à-vis what appeals to people living in 78704 today. And I think we’ve done a pretty good job of capturing that demographic,” Ayer says.
Tomorrow (6/26) Rob Patterson takes a final spin up and down South Lamar to ponder the fate of the Horseshoe Lounge, assess transportation options, and speculate on how the boulevard may change yet remain the same.
