‘Top Chef’ winner tapped to helm kitchens; Hot coals no easy feat within a skyscraper
“Top Chef” winner Gabe Erales will open a restaurant in the Rainey Street district downtown, working with Urbanspace Hospitality.
Urbanspace started as a real estate brokerage in Austin and has continued to grow its divisions, most recently moving into development and the hospitality space. While many may fear jumping into the low-profit-margin restaurant industry — especially in an uncertain economy — Kevin Burns, founder and CEO of Urbanspace, has high hopes for the company’s new effort.
Executive chef and co-owner Erales will be working on two concepts: a two-story, sit-down restaurant called Bacalar and Tomalo, a taco, agua fresca and coffee takeaway window. The two eateries will sit on the ground floor of 44 East Ave, a new condominium tower on the edge of Lady Bird Lake developed by Intracorp Projects Ltd. Flintco is the general contractor and Urbanspace oversees condominium sales.
Bacalar, named after part of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, will serve regional Mexican food from the diverse cuisine in the Yucatan region. This Mexican food has influences from different diasporas through Lebanon, Spain, Belize and West Africa, Erales said.
“We’re not looking to be this unidentifiable creation of dishes where people walk in, they have no idea what they’re eating,” Erales said. “There will be the things that people are familiar with and recognize like cochinita pibil. That dish is very special to me because that was the first thing my mom taught me.”
Bacalar has around 7,000 square feet of indoor space and more than 2,000 square feet of outdoor space. It will be able to seat 200 guests. Urbanspace started this project with only a ground floor. It was a challenge to create a space that supports the two projects while including a bar and maximizing the lake view. Merrill Alley, Bacalar co-owner and principal of Urbanspace Interiors, designed a second-floor mezzanine that didn’t exist to enhance the view and add more square footage.
Directly in front of Bacalar is a park that will soon get a revamp with outdoor seating, playscapes and a kayak launch, to which Urbanspace contributed more than $500,000, Burns said.
Burns has always held a passion for real estate, buying the ground-floor spaces of buildings that the company has worked with and adding Urbanspace concepts. The company operates in tens of thousands of square feet inside downtown buildings. Urbanspace’s first venture into hospitality turned the ground floor of The Independent into coffee and cocktail bar Codependent.
The ground floor of a residential tower is the most important aspect of the building because it sets the identity and adds value to the building, Burns said.
While restaurants tend to run on small profit margins, Urbanspace still chose to dive into the market. Burns said his economics differ from an average restaurateur and referred to McDonald’s as a company that makes it money from its real estate, not its hamburgers.
Urbanspace Hospitality has plans to open a bar and cocktail lounge at the ground floor of The Modern, a 56-story residential tower also in the Rainey Street district, slated to open in 2025.