Austin Hospitality Group New Waterloo Closes Most of its Restaurants Amid Coronavirus Outbreak

Prolific Austin hospitality group New Waterloo announced that it was immediately temporarily closing all ten of its restaurants and the Butler Pitch & Putt as of today, Monday, March 16, in light of the novel coronavirus outbreak in Austin.

This temporary shutter applies to:

• Downtown Mexican restaurant La Condesa
• Thai restaurant Sway, which has three locations: South First, Rock Rose, and Westlake
• East Austin Italian restaurant Il Brutto
• East Austin Italian sandwich shop La Matta
• Downtown French restaurant Le Politique and its patisserie
• South Congress Hotel restaurant Central Standard
• South Austin omakase spot Otoko at the South Congress Hotel
• South Austin cocktail bar Watertrade at the South Congress Hotel

However, South Congress Hotel’s all-day restaurant Cafe No Se and downtown Austin hotel restaurant Goodall’s Kitchen will remain open. Reopening dates for the shuttered restaurants aren’t known at this time.

The restaurant group noted that it will use its current food supply to make meals for affected staffers. A rep for the company also noted that it will offer additional resources to staffers, but what exactly those are is unclear at this point.

This is Austin’s first major restaurant group to close down a large number of restaurants in order to encourage social distancing to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

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