Ibiza closing

Pioneering Midtown Houston restaurant announces closing date

Ibiza will close next year.

One of the restaurant's that led Midtown's transformation is calling it quits. Ibiza Food & Wine Bar will close February 15, 2020, owner Clark Cooper Concepts announced.

Partners Charles Clark and Grant Cooper opened Ibiza in 2001 with the then-revolutionary idea of charging near-retail prices for bottles of wine. At a time when most restaurants charged three or more times their cost, Ibiza's pricing structure lured oenophiles who suddenly found themselves able to order two or three bottles of wine with dinner instead of one.

“We had the concept of Ibiza in our heads for years. We wanted to create a restaurant where we could drink great wine, eat really good food, and enjoy the experience without spending a fortune,” Clark said in a statement. “After I came back from working in Marbella, Spain, Grant and I knew it was time to open our own concept, and so Ibiza came to life, and we were the first to 're-invent' Midtown.”

When Ibiza opened, Vietnamese restaurants such as Van Loc and Mai's and a couple of Houston classics like Damian's and Brennan's mostly defined Midtown's identity from a dining perspective. Ibiza helped demonstrate that it could support more trendy concepts. Now, dozens of establishments and a thriving nightlife scene call the neighborhood home.

Even as Clark Cooper's reach has grown with restaurants such as Brasserie 19, Coppa Osteria, and The Dunlavy, Clark will typically be found working dinner service at Ibiza. Shuttering the restaurant will allow him to focus on those other businesses. In addition, the company is working on opening new restaurants, as the partners discussed during a recent appearance on CultureMap's "What's Eric Eating" podcast. Without Ibiza, Clark will be able to focus on those yet-to-be-announced projects more intensely.

“It is hard to see a restaurant you’ve worked in everyday close, but we just did not see ourselves in this space for the next five to 10 years," Clark added. "We see this evolution as an opportunity for our customers to frequent our other restaurants more often and for us to evolve our focus and concepts and allow for continued growth of our group of restaurants."

closings

Farewell, ElRo

Creative Montrose pizzeria will shutter after only a year-and-a-half

Photo by Julie Soefer

ElRo Pizza & Crudo

An acclaimed Houston pizzeria will soon serve its final pies. ElRo Pizza & Crudo will close after service on December 31.

In a post on Instagram, chef-owner Terrence Gallivan thanks his staff for their dedication and his customers for their support. “We hope to see you all over the next couple weeks. Come celebrate with us,” he writes.

Open since June 2023, ElRo intrigued diners who enjoyed Gallivan’s work at pioneering Houston restaurant The Pass & Provisions. At ElRo, the chef served a modified version of the Provisions pizza recipe alongside crudos and shareable small plates such as arancini and housemade sausage. It earned four nominations in this year’s CultureMap Tastemaker Awards, including Best New Restaurant and Chef of the Year.

Sadly, Gallivan tells CultureMap that business has seen “a steady decline in business for many months.” Recently, the restaurant had tried a number of initiatives to draw in diners, such as steak night on Tuesday and fried chicken on Saturday.

The early announcement gives diners two weeks to make one more visit (or two) to the restaurant before it closes. Customers may want to time their visit for happy hour, which takes places from 3-6 pm Tuesday-Friday. It includes half-off glasses of wine, $4 draft beers, $9 select cocktails, and food specials.

Gallivan adds that he doesn’t know yet what his next move will be. Hopefully, he’s got one more comeback in him. Houston is a more fun town to dine in when Gallivan is cooking in it.

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