La Barbecue’s Los Angeles Plans, and More A.M. Intel

— Austin’s out-of-state expansions: For La Barbecue's Los Angeles debut, the barbecue trailer will pop up as part of the city's Smorgasburg food fair starting in the fall. Now that Austin has not one, but two Lustre Pearls, owner Bridget Dunlap is bringing the bar over to Denver, Colorado, in August.

— While not Austin, San Antonio hot spot Hot Joy is opening a pop-up restaurant in Dallas, while it looks for a more stable location.

— The barbecue bill (House Bill 2029, also known as the Weights and Scales in Restaurants bill), which would nix inspections of scales used to sell "food sold for immediate consumption," was passed by the Texas House of Representatives yesterday. It'll proceed to the Senate for consideration.

— Bastrop Tex-Mex restaurant Ramos caught on fire early this morning.

— A potential bill might cap the overall number of barrels a brewery is allowed to sell to customers from its taproom. If passed, this would affect high volume breweries with more than one location (because it considers the total number of barrels across the board rather than individual breweries), like Oskar Blues Brewer. Austin 360 floats the idea that Independence Brewing might be included as well because of Lagunitas Brewing's investment.

— The executive director of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, Sherry Cook, retired according to a statement from the TABC or resigned according to Governor Greg Abbott. She and other staffers were called out for spending taxpayers' money on out-of-state conferences to California and Hawaii.

— Equity firm General Atlantic invested in Torchy's Tacos. Two of its staffers, Andrew Crawford and Shaw Joseph, join the Austin taco chain's board of directors. Could this mean Torchy’s across the country?

— Kemuri Tatsu-ya, the Japanese Texas izakaya from Ramen Tatsu-ya, is now accepting a limited number of reservations for those who like to make solid plans. Alas this only applies to Kemuri and not the noodle soup restaurants.

— Someone tried to steal 512 Bar's tip jar over the weekend.