Playing with Fire

YouTube hit My Drunk Kitchen shows up at Capital Area Food Bank of Texas

The Capital Area Food Bank of Texas is always happy to have volunteers stop by, even when they are internet celebrities who are known for getting drunk and cooking poorly.

If you haven’t heard of Hannah Hart’s unexpectedly popular YouTube series, My Drunk Kitchen, then you’ve never had too much wine to drink on a Thursday and tried to make yourself a grilled cheese sandwich while filming the whole process to send to a friend. For most of us, this would result in a small kitchen fire, but for Hart it meant a booming new career and a fan-sponsored cross country tour.

With over 54 million views on her YouTube Channel in two years, Hart decided it was time to take her show on the road. Hello, Harto! is an IndieGoGo funded national tour that is part video blog, part travel show, part getting drunk in her fan’s kitchens, and part community service.

While Hart has earned her fame off of kitchen misadventures, she is certainly not letting a single crumb of her celebrity status to go to waste.

Realizing how important it was to foster the community that has supported her, Hart let her fans choose her tour stops. She picks a different fan’s kitchen in each city to film a My Drunk Kitchen episode and she invites her followers to join her to volunteer at every stop.

Hart pulled over in Austin (the tour’s 16^th stop) on June 12, where she invited her Hartosexuals (her fans) to meet up at the Capital Area Food Bank of Texas to lend a helping hand.

Sara Peralta, the Food Bank’s communications manager, explained, “The support of the Food Bank by Hannah and her fans arrives at a critical time…1 in 4 Central Texas children are at risk of hunger. When children are not in school, they cannot access important nutrition programs like free or reduced lunch…The Food Bank needs the support of the community to keep children nourished & healthy, now more than ever.”

Taking the time to help local communities as well as hang out with her IndieGoGo donators has been Hart’s way of thanking her fans for funding this tour.

“I could have made people pay tickets to go to live events, but I thought it would just be better and a more authentic way to spend time by volunteering together. [Our hope for every city that we go to is that the people that we visited are encouraged to continue to volunteer at their local Food Bank together, even though I’m not there anymore],” said Hart.

The Hello, Harto! fundraising campaign was so successful that she will be doing an international tour as well. Hart says she plans on taking that opportunity to continue spreading awareness about hunger on a local and international level. “When you’re given such encouragement and positivity, the only thing that feels good to do with it is pay it forward.”

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IndieGoGo page
Hart’s Youtube page
My Drunk Kitchen episodes

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News You Can Eat

Aba's sister eatery and a surprising Chinese closure jolt Austin food news

Photo courtesy of Jeff Marini

Aba's sister restaurant specializes in lighter fare.

After an extremely busy few weeks, Austin's restaurant and bar scene has yet to slow down. Three big pieces of news hit at the end of the week involving famous restaurant Aba's new sister eatery, Zoé Tong's surprising closure, and a new coffee and wine shop by the folks at Small Victory. And as usual, we've got a few events to look forward to.

Openings and closings

Few Austin restaurants send their clarion call to celebrities the way Aba does, so it's no surprise that its newly announced sister restaurant is already causing a stir. Ēma, Hebrew for "mother" will open at the Domain Northside (3120 Palm Way, Suite 170) in fall of 2025. Like Aba's pan-Mediterranean cooking, this restaurant will take inspiration from the region, but feature a lighter style of cooking, according to a release. Ēma currently has two restaurants in Chicago, and this will be the first in Texas. This project has been in the works since at least 2019.

The business partners behind the popular cocktail bar Small Victory are making a big move. Laura Maddox and Josh Loving are almost ready to debut their new coffee shop and wine bar, Strangelove. They've gotten help from Figure 8 Coffee Purveyors owners Ryan Hall and Kathleen Carmichael, and are holding one pop-up each at the existing two locations — Small Victory on December 19 and Figure 8 on December 21 — to get things rolling. For now, it's all Strangelove merch, house roasted coffee beans, and wines by the glass (to introduce Strangelove wine buyer Candice Dublin). Strangelove will have a soft opening on East Cesar Chavez "after the new year" according to an email from Maddox. More upcoming Small Victory events are listed on Instagram.

Still Austin Whiskey Co. keeps making news, in November because of a boastful (but funny) game day stunt, and just this week for making Whisky Advocate's list of the 20 most exciting whiskeys in the world. It also has another recent win to brag about: welcoming the new Sterrato Italian Specialties food truck as a resident at the distillery (440 E. St. Elmo Rd., Ste. F). As the name suggests, it'll serve up Italian specialties like wood-fired pizza and fresh pasta, but with "a modern Asian twist," according to a press release. Menu items include ttok ala vodka (Korean rice cakes with sauce) and a sando al Italia (artisan salumi, "castlevatrano" kosho, kewpie, and tomato), and pizzas are $13 every Tuesday. Normal hours are Tuesdays through Saturdays from noon to 9 pm, and Sundays from noon to 7 pm.

Sterrato Italian Specialties pizza And that's what an Asian-inspired pizza looks like.Photo courtesy of Sterrato Italian Specialties

Whatever brought the end of Zoé Tong's Barton Springs location, it couldn't have been a lack of effort. This creative and unique Sichuan-inspired restaurant even opened a barbecue food truck, Sí Baby-Q, in the year it's been open. But it announced in an email newsletter shared on the ATX Asian Food group on Facebook that it will be closing down and taking the food truck with it. The team says they're looking for a new space, and fans should keep an eye out for pop-ups. But for now, the last day of service is December 31.

Other news and notes

It's Italian Cucina has launched a brunch menu to be served from 11:30 am to 3 pm daily except Mondays, when the restaurant is closed. The South Lamar eatery specializing in Italian classics presents brunch dishes like a basilica frittata (omelette with basil, tomatoes, and fresh mozzarella), a breakfast pizza (prosciutto, arugula, spicy San Marzano, and sunny side up egg), and pasta carbonara (fresh rigatoni with pancetta, Pecorino Romano, garlic, and eggs). It's also pouring some classic cocktails like mimosas and Bloody Marys.

Austin-based snowboarders are looking forward to the season to run away to colder places, and the Arizona-based chain Cheba Hut is enabling them with a chance to win a free snowboard by Never Summer and a mountain retreat. Austinites can go online or visit the sandwich shop on Guadalupe Street from now until December 31, and order an 8-inch sub to enter. They'll have to sign into the Cheba Hut app and use a rewards account to be eligible, but the $10 floor will be easy to hit since that's about the price of a basic sandwich.