[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by Jdawgboy

Okay I'm about to go on a major rant here...

So of course yesterday was the 4th of July, hope everyone had a fun day. The tradition with me is I like to go DT with a friend/friends to see the fireworks and we did just that. Parked at my usual garage and walked to the S.1st bridge. Lots of people all over former Auditorium shores and Bulter Park, across the bridge, pedestrian bridge ect... So we watched the fireworks then decided to get something to eat since my best friend had her young daughter and she was getting hungry.

So we head into DT along with thousands of other people, only to find that most restaurants were either closed or about to close. We walked to a pizza place which was closed, then we tried JJs and P.Terrys by 6th and Congress. They were turning people away and closing up. Walked to a place further on 6th Street, found a sit in restaurant glad at that point, only to sit for 20 min with no servers coming up and finally a waitress comes up and said well we ran out of some ingredients and so we are closing, after we are sitting there for freaking 20 min honestly I think it was because they were understaffed and the place was filled...

My point is Austin needs to step it up! How the hell in a city of nearly a million people are you going to have most of the eateries shut down like it's just a typical Tuesday when it's a major holiday with tens of thousands of people walking through the streets of Downtown, many like us looking for a place to eat. Whole families with kids. When we tried to walk into JJs, a lady turned to me and said this is ridiculous all these places are losing major business. Throngs of people walked up to go into both P.Terrys and JJs and where throwing up their hands gestering to the workers inside like what the heck???.

I was truly embarrased of my city at that moment which is a rare thing for me. Why on a major holiday when businesses DT should have known there were going to be thousands of people out and it was if we are in some podunk town where everything shuts down at 10 on the dot. Many people were surprised. I'm sending an email to the city council to bring this issue up. We cannot say we are truly an 18 hour city or whatever when restaurants throughout DT close when there are thousands of people walking through looking for places to go. Tuesday night or not, it was a major holiday and businesses DT should have been prepared for it, added more staff and stay open at least an extra hour seeing as how it's close to 10 pm when the fireworks end. Truely frustrating and embarrassing.


Rant over.

This is a problem in MOST cities under 4 or 5 million MSA, to be honest, except for San Antonio and Portland.

My real question is this: did you not take pictures to share with all of us?