“This One Hurts”: An Austin Restaurant’s Patrons Say Goodbye

Except for the long line out front, the dozens of former employees sitting at tables, and the occasional outbursts of applause, the last night at Vespaio, an Italian restaurant on Austin’s South Congress Avenue, felt like any other over the past 27 years. The dining room and bar area were packed, the small kitchen was busy, and the bartenders and waitstaff were in constant motion.It was 5:30 on Saturday evening, and my wife, Liz, and I sat at the crowded bar, as we had a hundred times before, and stared at the menu, even though we knew what we were going to get: the lasagna. “I don’t regret having the thing we’ve had fifty times,” I said.“Because we’ll never have it again,” Liz replied.We looked…

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