Farewell to a Sunday brunch legend—La Strada has closed its doors for good.
Launched in 1986, La Strada's wild brunch parties took hold in the '90s by combining the flamboyant energy of Montrose with a fun mixed crowd that had one thing in common—not wanting the party to die when the sun came up on Sunday. There were Mardi Gras beads aplenty and dancers constantly shimmying on the bars. The place was practically a disco inferno.
And then there was the fire, a real one, in 2002, that closed La Strada for over a year. The partiers found other places for their hair of the dog—Berryhill, Farrago, El Tiempo. When it reopened in 2004, something was different. People still came to drink and party, but it was a little more pretentious, a velvet rope, see-and-be-seen scene. Lower Westheimer still straddles the fine line between upscale and modern bohemian, but La Strada seemed to abandon the latter for the former. And now it's gone.
There goes the gayborhood.
