Austinites rally to celebrate Hoover's Cooking owner

• The last day of full-service operations was May 31, but supporters will hold a celebration for the restaurant on Monday.

Flashback: In March, owner Hoover Alexander announced that he would be retiring and closing the restaurant, citing a need for a better quality of life.

• Alexander is a fifth-generation Texan who has been in the restaurant industry for nearly 50 years.
• He learned to cook and operate a restaurant while working at the historic Night Hawk chain as a student at the University of Texas, working his way up from washing dishes to management.

Between the lines: Restaurants that last as long as Hoover's are rare, per Census Bureau data provided to Axios by the Texas Restaurant Association.

• Just 18% of Texas restaurants have been in business for 16 years or longer.

• By comparison, roughly half of the state's restaurants are less than 5 years old.

If you go: You can celebrate the final days of Hoover's during the "Hoova' Palooza" event in the Hoover's parking lot.

• A GoFundMe to support Alexander's retirement had raised about $16,000 as of Thursday morning.

What's next: Alexander has left the door open for future endeavors.

• "I ain't done yet, and I don't know exactly what that means yet," he told KXAN.