Hot Headlines

Another surprising Austin restaurant closure and more of the week's top stories

Editor's note: Restaurant closures and real estate news lead this round of top stories. Read on for the rest of the week’s most popular headlines.

1. Popular downtown Austin restaurant closes in surprising twist of fate: New plans revealed. It seems 2016 is shaping up to be the year of restaurant closures. After service on Friday, February 5, Arro will join the ranks and close its doors for good. CultureMap has exclusive details on what will become of the space.

2. This popular Austin neighborhood ranks among the hottest in America. Home sales in Austin's beloved Hyde Park are sizzling so much that Redfin just ranked the neighborhood the fourth hottest in America. An annual report from the real estate brokerage firm projects homes sales trends for the coming year, and Hyde Park is on track for stellar sales in 2016.

3. Affordable Austin suburb named one of America's five best places to live. Finding the best place to live is often a compromise between affordability and fun — but in this Austin suburb, you can have it all. For the second year in a row, Round Rock remains one of the best affordable places to live.

4. Expert discloses habits to avoid at work — and how to combat them. Maura Nevel Thomas, a productivity guru of sorts, has dedicated much of her career to helping folks control their attention and manage their time. To help you have a productive workday every day, we looked to Thomas for the five pitfalls to avoid at work.

5. This funky custom home opens doors to East Austin living. Now here's a home for the buyer who wants to live in the heart of Austin: 2105 E. Ninth St. has plenty of perks, but perhaps the biggest is easy access to all that East Austin has to offer.

Arro served its last meal on Friday.

Arro Austin restaurant West Sixth patio yard outdoor

Arro/Facebook

Arro served its last meal on Friday.

More Foraging

Free 'food forest' in East Austin expands with thousands of new plants

Angelina Alanis at Festival Beach Food Forest

Photo courtesy of KVUE

Angelina Alanis gives a tour of the garden, which is open to anyone.

In East Austin, there is an edible forest garden called Festival Beach Food Forest where anyone can walk around and harvest free produce, nuts, medicinal plant leaves and herbs. And over the summer, it grew to several times its size.

The forest has fig trees, peach trees, grapevines, asparagus and more that's not in season right now. You can grab passionfruit and plants like yaupon holly, with leaves that can make a caffeinated tea, rosemary and lemon balm.

"[Lemon balm] is part of the mint family," said Angelina Alanis, communication and partnership coordinator for Festival Beach Food Forest. "It has a lemony taste but it's good for a nervous stomach. I'm prone to anxiety so I always grab a hunk."

The food forest is located right next to Interstate 35 and Lady Bird Lake on 29 Waller St., near a part of town that's known for being a food desert, lacking grocery stores.

"There's as much as a 20-year life expectancy difference between parts of East and West Austin, and a lot of that comes down to food access, health care access and also access to nature."

Alanis said for the past nine years, the volunteer-based grassroots project been helping with the issue and just recently expanded in the summer from two-thirds of an acre of city parkland to over 3.5 acres.

"We're going to have hundreds of new trees," said Alanis. "We've already planted 150 new trees in the area and then thousands of plants on the ground."

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They also plan to add a community kitchen and a pavilion to do things like cooking classes or informational sessions.

Read the full story at KVUE.com.

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