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Owners closed up shop this past Sunday, after sending out a touching and hilarious "news release" that described the "death by drive-by" of the short-lived burger stand by national fast food chains:
Sometime in the early morning hours of Friday, July 10, tragedy struck another local favorite at the South Austin Trailer Park. Torchy was shocked this morning to find his cousin Shuggie dead of suspected drive-bys using national chains run by rivals Jack & Ronald.A witness heard some pops and loud giggles, and watched an AMC Pacer trying to speed away from the scene.
"It sounded like fireworks and then, uh... there was this strange laugh like Mike Tyson meets Dr Evil. The driver seemed to be a giant ping-pong ball with a pointy yellow hat and the shooter had a white & red striped arm with a yellow glove." Small businesses throughout Austin are investigating why any resident would 'drive by' a local business to support these chain gangs.
"Participating in drive by's during this financial pinch, there may not be any local businesses left when this recession ends and life resumes" says Torchy, Shuggie's cousin. "It's a shame to see a good business die like this, it sucks. Shuggie was a good person and I'll miss him... or her, we were never really sure."
During Shuggies short life, it helped support many charities and most recently grieved Hollywood losses by giving away burgers & fries... a controversial move Shuggie stood behind. Shuggie was also in love with and loved (mostly) by Austin's own Yelp community.
Shuggie is survived by his cousin Torchy of Torchy's Tacos and the good, hard working friends he made while there....
In lieu of donations, Shuggie's Family asks that you discontinue 'driving by' local burger favorites - help Austin local businesses survive and go to some of our favorites like P. Terry's, Hat Creek Burger Co., and Sandy's. Shuggies family is accepting donations of canned foods at the trailer park to benefit The Capitol Area Food Bank, one of Shuggies favorite local charities.
Fare thee well, Shuggie's. We'll miss your Green Chili Cheese Fries.
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I would have loved to give Shuggie's a try but when your lowest costing burger starts at seven dollars coming of of a trailer you are not going to be successful. That was too costly for me to 'try'. So hopefully the next place will learn from Shuggie's mistake as P.Terry's and Sandy's obviously know how to sell burgers.
RIP Shuggie's...would have been nice to try one
Keep going strong Torchy's!
The failure rate for restaurants is sky high so if you're going to start one from scratch you'd better have a GREAT business plan and a lot of luck. It sounds like Shuggie's simply misjudged the market. Austinites support the heck out of local businesses so blaming Shuggie's failure on chains like Mickey D's or Jack-In-The-Crack is totally disingenuous.
Austinist once again gives no link, but the original "press release" from Shuggies included pictures of the suspects- the redhaired clown cooling his heels in the back of a squad car, and the ping-pong ball headed guy roughing up the Burger King (who had lost his crown).
It's not disingenuous, it's tongue-in-cheek humor.
My opinon is that if you have a good product, Austinites will seek it out over convenience.
Wes, they weren't really blaming the big burger places. It was more tongue-in-cheek.
One of the owners told me that they basically wanted to focus on what they do best (better): tacos. And they plan to expand Torchy's. Whether you think that is true or not is up to you, but I have a few quotes from the dude in a piece I did last week when this was announced.
http://tinyurl.com/kq44m5
I blame Whole Foods, downtown condo dwellers and reckless bicyclists for Shuggies' demise.