editorial series
HTX Good Eats 2012

mischief 101

Burger prank: "Punk kids" temporarily shut down Hubcap Grill with messy attack

With Halloween swiftly approaching, the nogoodnicks are coming out of the woodwork.

Just ask burger bad boy Ricky Craig, whose downtown Hubcap Grill location became the target of the classic glue-in-the-lock prank on Wednesday. Unable to do any morning prep work, the owner was forced to shutter the popular lunch stop for the day.

"It sucks we had to close, but I wasn't going to stress about it. Our downtown staff got a surprise Ricky holiday."

"That morning, we could get the key to turn and it ended up breaking in the lock," Craig tells CultureMap. "When we were drilling a hole into the lock, there was this gooey, cotton candy-like adhesive stuff inside."

Craig and his father — who runs the branch on 1111 Prairie — went to Home Depot for a fresh locking system and gave up on the idea of opening.

"It sucks we had to close, but I wasn't going to stress about it," he says. "Our downtown staff got a surprise Ricky holiday." After an endless barrage of questions from concerned Hubcap fans, Craig revealed the glue attack in a quick tweet.

Craig, who recently dealt with minor vandalism at the Hubcap branch in the Heights, says that the prank didn't appear to be directed at him personally or at his well-regarded burger joint. "It was totally just some punk kids," he says.

With the downtown location fully operational, Craig notes that he's concentrating on a new non-burger venture. While he wasn't revealing any further details, he did mention that he's been leaving periodic clues on the Hubcap Twitter account.

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