AUSTIN, Texas (KXAN) — Underneath a cypress by Lake Austin, Ralph Gilmore wraps his Friday spent on a pontoon.
“My happy place is being on the water,” he says after finishing a day of renting out his boat. The 67-year-old makes a living based on his love for the water.
“I had a full menu of seafood, beef, chicken, made everything from tacos,” he recalled of his most recent career: Turf N’ Surf Po’ Boy. Gilmore owned and operated the seafood spot in downtown Austin for 16 years.
“Loved it,” he said of the venture. “Just making people happy with food is what I really like doing.”
Turf N’ Surf began as a food truck in 2010, with Gilmore converting a ship container into a restaurant on wheels. By 2012, the seafood spot washed ashore to a walk-up window beside Lavaca Street Bar at 405 Lavaca Street.
Gilmore says the pandemic and its fallout squeezed his business as well as the downtown area.
“We lost the tours that was always coming to downtown,” he said as apartment and office towers began to climb the city skyline, “and being downtown without parking, we need the tours.”
Post-pandemic trends for work also left a mark on Turf N’ Surf, according to Gilmore.
“Office people weren’t working downtown. They were working from home. So we were losing our lunch.”
The Q2 report from the Downtown Austin Alliance shows office vacancy jumped 15% between 2019 to 2026. Although that statistic slightly dipped in the latest quarter, about 1 in 5 offices in the heart of the city are empty.
“We just don’t have the foot traffic,” added Gilmore.
The Alliance also found downtown foot traffic has only hit 93% of pre-pandemic levels, with total monthly visits sitting around 3.5 million.
“I couldn’t do it anymore,” asserted Gilmore. “I was just hanging on for it to get better, kept feeding it personal money.”
Turf N’ Surf closed late-July, leaving patrons like Francisco Nuno without their go-to seafood spot.
“The calamari is awesome,” he said of Gilmore’s restaurant.
But as a food delivery driver, Nuno feels he’s picking up on a trend in the community.
“I’ve been to other restaurants that have been here for 40, 50, 60 years, and they’re gone.”
Nuno believes downtown’s evolving; he referenced the arrival of remote workers which keeps him on his bicycle around the city center — a 2024 report found Austin leads the nation in its share of such employees.
“People down here, they have that extra money to spend on deliveries. It’s always busy.”
With a “Sorry. We closed” paper clinging to Turf’s old window, Gilmore says he’s moving onto his next chapter.
The restaurant owner plans to open Hook House Kitchen in Rockport. He expects opening day to arrive within five weeks.
“I’m going to bring a coastal menu, something similar to what I got, but more restaurant menu where I’ll have the liquor sales, the desserts, the appetizers and a plate of food,” Gilmore described. “Rockport, Texas is a cool little city that’s a great fishing town, small town, but a lot of charm, brings a lot of tourists in.”
He characterizes the career pivot as a fresh start off the saltwater coast.
“I look forward to doing it, making people happy again.”
Updates on Hook House can be found here.
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