Bad News for a Top BBQ Joint in Austin (Valentina's)

JohnInCarolina

Hate to see this:

https://www.chron.com/food/article/barbecue-austin-valentinas-closed-texas-19424664.php

Their breakfast taco, the Real Deal Holyfield, is one of the best things I've ever had.  Sounds to me like they just got into a deep hole and kept digging.  

WeberWho

Ouch. Not a good look. That's too bad. 

fishlessman

2.3 million is a huge hole to dig out of for a small business and the restaurant business has places closing all over the place

Hook_emHornsfan_74

From some friends I have who live in Buda, they said that they are going to reopen, just under a managing company.  They can obviously cook, but going from 600sq ft. to 6000sq ft was a little more than they could handle.  

Legume

They should temporarily rename the Real Deal Holyfield the Riddick Bowe.

DoubleEgger

600sq ft or 6,000sq ft, a thief is a thief. If the allegations are true, they deserve everything that’s coming their way. 

JohnInCarolina

DoubleEgger said:

600sq ft or 6,000sq ft, a thief is a thief. If the allegations are true, they deserve everything that’s coming their way. 

Yeah, stealing from high school kids is not a good look no matter what. 

lousubcap

Hook_emHornsfan_74 said:

From some friends I have who live in Buda, they said that they are going to reopen, just under a managing company.  They can obviously cook, but going from 600sq ft. to 6000sq ft was a little more than they could handle.  

I had read that as well but time will tell.  They are in quite a trick-sack.  Reportedly their service has gone way down.
I was there in October 2023 and did not have any issues.  The RDH was a great as ever.  
I'll be there this coming October as well.  Hopefully enjoying the RDH.

Legume

6000 may have worked if they were in Austin, but they're a few exits too far now.  Buda is like another country for most folks in Austin, definitely anyone north of the river.  They'd have to be in the Cabelas parking lot for that to work.

Ozzie_Isaac

Being involved with a few business ventures, I understand their pain (not the stealing from high school kids, or anybody for that matter … hopefully that is a misunderstanding). Scaling businesses is very hard.  YouTube, coaches, classes, books, etc make it look easy, but many times it is not.  Doing it in the notoriously fickle and cut throat restaurant industry has to be darn near impossible.  It seems like revenue grows linearly while expenses grow exponentially.

fishlessman

someone up top was skimming, cash, extra rent for the building, gas cards, atm, trips, pocketing the tax dollars etc. no way does steeling from hs kids add up to 2.3 million. i doubt you could steel 50k in several years with part time hs kids

Ozzie_Isaac

fishlessman said:

someone up top was skimming, cash, extra rent for the building, gas cards, atm, trips, pocketing the tax dollars etc. no way does steeling from hs kids add up to 2.3 million. i doubt you could steel 50k in several years with part time hs kids

Did they steal $2.3M or are they in debt to contractors and government for $2.3M?

fishlessman

Ozzie_Isaac said:

fishlessman said:

someone up top was skimming, cash, extra rent for the building, gas cards, atm, trips, pocketing the tax dollars etc. no way does steeling from hs kids add up to 2.3 million. i doubt you could steel 50k in several years with part time hs kids

Did they steal $2.3M or are they in debt to contractors and government for $2.3M?

In these times contractors don't play bank, it's money down then partial payments, when the project is done they maybe owed ten percent. If the govt is owed, even the dog is tagged by the irs. I had a book keeper skimming for a few years, the irs practically lived with me til I got the money back from her husband's pension plan, she owed about 250k, only about 50k was social security money. Getting the money back was bluff and pure luck, that usually doesn't happen. Accountants are no help, they just assume the owners are taking it and tell you to slow down if they can't hide it

It's retty hard to not see the losses on the profitt loss sheet happening over a 3 year period with 2.3 mil missing in a small business

TheFishWhisperer

fishlessman said:

Ozzie_Isaac said:

fishlessman said:

someone up top was skimming, cash, extra rent for the building, gas cards, atm, trips, pocketing the tax dollars etc. no way does steeling from hs kids add up to 2.3 million. i doubt you could steel 50k in several years with part time hs kids

Did they steal $2.3M or are they in debt to contractors and government for $2.3M?

In these times contractors don't play bank, it's money down then partial payments, when the project is done they maybe owed ten percent. If the govt is owed, even the dog is tagged by the irs. I had a book keeper skimming for a few years, the irs practically lived with me til I got the money back from her husband's pension plan, she owed about 250k, only about 50k was social security money. Getting the money back was bluff and pure luck, that usually doesn't happen. Accountants are no help, they just assume the owners are taking it and tell you to slow down if they can't hide it

It's retty hard to not see the losses on the profitt loss sheet happening over a 3 year period with 2.3 mil missing in a small business

fishlessman

TheFishWhisperer said:

fishlessman said:

Ozzie_Isaac said:

fishlessman said:

someone up top was skimming, cash, extra rent for the building, gas cards, atm, trips, pocketing the tax dollars etc. no way does steeling from hs kids add up to 2.3 million. i doubt you could steel 50k in several years with part time hs kids

Did they steal $2.3M or are they in debt to contractors and government for $2.3M?

In these times contractors don't play bank, it's money down then partial payments, when the project is done they maybe owed ten percent. If the govt is owed, even the dog is tagged by the irs. I had a book keeper skimming for a few years, the irs practically lived with me til I got the money back from her husband's pension plan, she owed about 250k, only about 50k was social security money. Getting the money back was bluff and pure luck, that usually doesn't happen. Accountants are no help, they just assume the owners are taking it and tell you to slow down if they can't hide it

It's retty hard to not see the losses on the profitt loss sheet happening over a 3 year period with 2.3 mil missing in a small business

And he whisperers.....and stutterers

The Cen-Tex Smoker

Looks like their investors are taking over the business and making them operate it to pay back the debt. Savage haha. Will be interesting to see how that plays out. $2.3M is many years worth of Real Deal Holyfield tacos. And if they can’t get their service levels significantly up, they won’t last 6 months. 

JohnInCarolina

< looks for flights to Austin > 

Canugghead

or Bre-X helicopter

Botch

Ewps, wrong forum...    

lousubcap

6 months gets thru October.  I may have one last chance for the RDH-

Howdy1

Kind of par for the course there, they can cook but management of a restaurant is\was not there thing.  Only went there a couple of times as even when there was no line, it took forever to get your food. 

Hopefully the management company can teach them how to run a restaurant to augment their awesome cooking skills!   Places like Franklins and Terry Blacks have always amazed me at how they can maintain quality day after day.  and Terry Blacks...man, the amount of meat and people they move through their restaurant everyday is just staggering.  

ColbyLang

Never been to Buda….never had a RDH…..being in the food industry and servicing a lot of restaurants, very few know how to properly manage their businesses. Busiest places in town can’t pay their bills or their staff. It takes a well oiled machine with an extremely refined checks and balances system to make it work when scaling. That’s why so many fail. 

The Cen-Tex Smoker

Welp…it’s officially over. The investors decided to cut and run. RIP Valentina’s. 

JohnInCarolina

All of the swear words.

Ozzie_Isaac

Looks like the American Chopper building.

Sad to see flying to close to the sun melted their wings.

lkapigian

JohnInCarolina said:

All of the swear words.

Agreed ! Hoping Leroy and Lewis survive the move from truck to brick and mortar 

lousubcap

Tough to read but not a surprise given the hole they were in. Scaling up a business to the extent they did is quite a challenge.  
Gotta find a new breakfast fix when next in the Austin area this October. F' me.

xfire_ATX

I had my boss fly into ATX for an event in SA.  Picked him up, drove to Valentinas and...
1. Couldnt find it, last time I was there it was a shack.
2. When I did find it I was like whoa this is a palace
3. Found it closed (the day they didnt open)
4. Got online later and realized the hurt they were in.

I seriously stood in front of that building and thought... this storefront is ridiculous, no wonder it all flopped.

Hook_emHornsfan_74

lkapigian said:

JohnInCarolina said:

All of the swear words.

Agreed ! Hoping Leroy and Lewis survive the move from truck to brick and mortar 

A friend of mine at there this past weekend and said it was amazing.  

lkapigian

Hook_emHornsfan_74 said:

lkapigian said:

JohnInCarolina said:

All of the swear words.

Agreed ! Hoping Leroy and Lewis survive the move from truck to brick and mortar 

A friend of mine at there this past weekend and said it was amazing.  

Evan and Team are pretty amazing, I sure they will pull this off

The whole thing reminds me of Fat Stack Smokers move from Ca to Houston and made it less than a year....being a good cook, BBQ Builder ETC does not translate into being good in business . I am blessed we have made it to our 30th year, sound foundation and never built our "building " to tall so we can survive the peaks and valleys of the business cycle 

Hook_emHornsfan_74

lkapigian said:

Hook_emHornsfan_74 said:

lkapigian said:

JohnInCarolina said:

All of the swear words.

Agreed ! Hoping Leroy and Lewis survive the move from truck to brick and mortar 

A friend of mine at there this past weekend and said it was amazing.  

Evan and Team are pretty amazing, I sure they will pull this off

The whole thing reminds me of Fat Stack Smokers move from Ca to Houston and made it less than a year....being a good cook, BBQ Builder ETC does not translate into being good in business . I am blessed we have made it to our 30th year, sound foundation and never built our "building " to tall so we can survive the peaks and valleys of the business cycle 

Honestly, I never understood why Valentina's did that.  Why fix what isn't broken.  They had an amazing business and were obviously doing pretty well.