Goodbye, Waterloo Ice House. Hello, Doc’s Bar & Grill. Doc’s Bar & Grill is scheduled to open by April 15 on 38th Street in Central Austin at the recently closed Waterloo Ice House. It’ll be the third Doc’s in Austin.
The co-owners of Doc’s are Charles Milligan, Neil Francois and Ted Karam. Karam also is co-owner of the four remaining Waterloo Ice House restaurants in Austin.
Jena Umstattd, a spokeswoman for Karam’s restaurant business, said the 38th Street location had become too small to fit the emerging prototype of Waterloo Ice House as a family entertainment spot, complete with playgrounds and game rooms.
Umstattd said the former Waterloo Ice House will be “a perfect place” for Doc’s, “especially with the way that specific area of the city is growing and changing so rapidly.”
“We’re very excited to be considered the new neighborhood bar and grill,” Milligan said, “and will continue to support the local and state craft brews.”
The Waterloo Ice House on 38th Street closed in early March. The restaurant employed about 25 people. Umstattd said those employees now work at one of the remaining Waterloo Ice House locations or at Doc’s on Brodie Lane in Sunset Valley.
Executives with Waterloo Ice House are scouting the Austin area for a new location “that will be able to encompass everything the brand has grown into,” Umstattd said. Among the places under consideration are Cedar Park and Kyle.
The latest closure follows the shutdown last year of three Waterloo Ice House locations in Austin. The first Waterloo Ice House opened in 1976 on Congress Avenue.
