Domain's Oakville Grocery Kaput

In what may not be the biggest surprise in culinary news, residents and customers at the Domain will be looking elsewhere for a convenient place to pick up a quick bottle of wine or cup of coffee as Oakville Grocery seems to finally be closed.

While Oakville offered a good selection of high-end foods, its mission was never that clear to customers. Was it a grocery store? Was it a place to sit and eat good but overprices cheese trays while sipping wine and watching Domain security guards zip around on their little Segways? Was it the de-facto break room where finely shod Neiman's sales peeps could go get their sandwich on? The Oakville Grocery Austin website is no longer up, and for the past several weeks there was a noticeable absence of products on the shelves, so the writing seemed to be on the wall. Still, it sort of begs the question - is their closing it a sign of our exciting new economy of fear, or was Oakville just the wrong business in the wrong place at the wrong time?

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By Sam Armstrong in Food on May 23, 2008 11:09 AM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

ducknutz

No great loss. There's enough fancy-pants stores in Austin already.

tomt

I'm not surprised at all. The wines were hugely overpriced, the cheese selection wasn't any better than Central Market or Whole Foods, and the sandwiches and snacks food selection were inferior compared to the great selection at the California Wine Country locations. Ultimately, they tried to pass off an inferior version of their original product, and even wine nerds like myself didn't bite.

Slickshu

That would be the HEB I spoke of above.

leggyblonde

What's on the corner of EAST 7th St. & Pleasant Valley?

Condos or something?

mandenator

they are closed for good

I was in there yesterday and they had a sign on the door saying that yes they were closing and everything was 76% off. I talked to the owner who said they were opening one up in dallas and somewhere else

Summers Eve

I'll tell you where they went wrong was selling dead babies instead of live ones. Half the fun of eating a fresh baby is killing it. DUH!

mdahmus

Slickshu, I meant the developer/landowner. Grocery margins are so low that nobody's willing to take the slightest risk beyond the niche market, and as we see, even that's not as much of a sure thing as they thought.

Especially for rental units, the landowner ought to be dragged down and forced to talk to people like me who paid a premium for being able to not have to drive to the grocery store for 7 years. They can and will make money on the deal on higher rents.

cram

i didn't take a U-Haul here. i just bought everything new last week at Eurway after selling my $2million shack in the Bay Area and relocating here into my downtown condo.

duh.

Slickshu

There's an Albertson's on 183 as well, but if you've lived in Austin for longer than it takes to unpack a U-Haul, you'd know what I mean.

The Domain boys wouldn't be subsidizing rents if we weren't subsidizing them with a TIF.

cram

I guess that huge ass Fiesta on the east side of I-35 doesn't count as a grocery store.

Nor does the HEB on Riverside.

(Side note: I bet Mike meant the owners of the Domain should subsidize the FreshPlus via cheaper rent)

Aaron Haley

My cat's ass makes perfectly good coffee that I walk uphill both ways to get and I'm damn satisfied damn you!! Arrrgghh. Kids these days. grumble, grumble, grumble.

Slickshu

Subsidize a Fresh Plus in one of these new places? Seriously? East Austin went for years without a grocery store, now only has one HEB on 7th, and you want me and other taxpayers to subsidize a Fresh Plus in one of these new places? Mike, c'mon! Rich folk should support their own boutique grocery with 45 varieties of extra virgin olive oil or coffee beans culled from cat excrement.

mdahmus

The wrong business.

Somebody seriously just needs to subsidize a Fresh Plus in one of these new places. They're the size, and breadth, of goods necessary to do all of your grocery shopping on foot. Anything smaller ain't gonna cut it for people who are used to an HEB.