Longtime Wine Restaurant Vino Vino Is Being Replaced With Gulf Seafood Spot Mongers

Longtime Hyde Park wine restaurant Vino Vino isn’t reopening after all, since it temporarily closed last year. Instead, the 4119 Guadalupe Street restaurant is being taken over by seafood restaurant Mongers, set to open sometime in early July.

This also means that Mongers is leaving its current home in Holly on 2401 East Cesar Chavez Street permanently. Its last day of service in East Austin will be on Saturday, June 27. Currently, the restaurant is open for patio dine-in and to-go services.

The new Hyde Park Mongers restaurant will make use of its bigger space, offering a full bar and larger marketplace. The Gulf Coast seafood-focused menu will expand with additional dishes, including non-seafood ones, as well as more family-friendly items.

Vino Vino owner and founder Kelly Bell decided to temporarily close the restaurant, known for its stellar wine list and great happy hour deals, in July 2019 for a “reset.” He wanted to find a new chef and general manager, and implement a new menu. However, he also noted that he was open to the idea of finding a new partner or outright selling the restaurant.

Mongers owner Shane Stark began renovating the former Vino Vino space in late 2019, according to Eater tipsters. The relocated space was supposed to open sometime in March, but that was delayed because of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Vino Vino opened in 2006 under Bell and partner Jeff Courington (who left in 2017). New partners chef Adam Brick and beverage director Paul Ozbirn were brought on in late 2017 to revamp and oversee the restaurant. Brick left shortly, with Ozbirn departing the following spring. They were replaced by new executive chef Ben Schwartz and general manager Doug West in July 2018, but they left the following year.

Stark and then-co-owner Roberto San Miguel opened Mongers in 2015, with a heavy focus on seafood sourced from the Gulf for both its restaurant and market. Stark previously worked at Kenichi. He also opened a Hawaiian-inspired food truck, Alley Cat, in 2017, but it is closed for now. San Miguel is a noted Gulf Coast fishmonger, but left the restaurant after a year.

Update, June 28, 11:19 a.m. This article, originally published on Tuesday, June 23, has been updated to include updates about Roberto San Miguel.

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