Chuy's co-founder Mike Young, who helped define Austin style and cuisine, dies at 74

A visionary restaurateur who brought an eclectic and irreverent aesthetic to the Tex-Mex genre, Mike Young helped define part of Austin's style and was a big-hearted friend and entrepreneur whose generosity resounded throughout his community. The co-founder of Chuy’s, Hula Hut and Shady Grove died of pancreatic cancer Friday morning in Austin. He was 74.

If you ask Austin residents or visitors to name a business that epitomizes the city and its friendly personality and eclectic style, Chuy’s would probably be at or near the top of most lists. Young and partner John Zapp opened the Tex-Mex restaurant on Barton Springs Road in 1982 for a fraction of what a new restaurant costs today, finishing the space out and decorating it on a shoestring budget with a hodgepodge of design elements, including a velvet Elvis painting that would become a hallmark of the restaurant.

Chuy’s, along with Shady Grove and Hula Hut, would define Young’s exemplary career in hospitality. It began at an early age. Young received his indoctrination into the world of hospitality as an adolescent working for his parents at their Sun Valley Motor Hotel in Harlingen. He worked every position from front desk to maintenance repair, learning from his parents the secret of hospitality: doing everything you can for the customer.

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That lesson would serve as Rule No. 1 at Chuy’s, according to Young’s close friend and Chuy’s first publicist, Marsha Milam. The other two foundational rules: Keep the restaurant as clean as possible, and have fun.

Young certainly lived the third rule.

Galaxy Cafe co-owner Jay Bunda, who worked at Chuy’s and Hula Hut from 1986 to 2006, met Young after a few weeks on the job. He arrived at Chuy’s more than an hour before the restaurant opened and saw something that confused him. He went to the manager’s office a bit perplexed.

“This place is crazy. There’s a guy in an Armani suit down in the lower dining room playing pinball,” Bunda told the manager. “Y’all let customers in before the restaurant opens?”

“That’s Mike Young,” the manager responded.

Turns out pinball games on the way into the office were a regular ritual for Young.

“He was a big kid,” Bunda said.

Young moved to Austin in the early 1970s after graduating from Southwest Texas State University (now Texas State). He spent the decade before he opened Chuy’s operating a string of popular restaurants that included Mike & Charlie’s, which Young opened at age 24 in 1973; Los Tres Bobos; and Gianni’s.

Chuy’s instantly became a hot spot in South Austin. Bunda, a regular customer for three years before going to work for Young and Zapp, had worked at a corporate restaurant before Chuy’s and was attracted to the Tex-Mex restaurant for a reason that probably resonates with many.

“It was really impressive to me how everyone was allowed to be themselves. The place was decorated really irreverently, and it was just a breath of fresh air the way they were running their restaurant,” Bunda said.

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Young’s warmth and concern for people permeated Chuy’s culture, according to Bunda. When a staff member celebrated the birth of a child or mourned the loss of a loved one, Young was always the first person to send flowers and call with congratulations or condolences.

His care spilled beyond his restaurants’ walls. Chuy’s, under Young’s guidance, created the Children Giving to Children Parade in 1989 to collect toys for the Austin Police Department’s Operation Blue Santa program. What started as a ragtag event featuring Marcia Ball playing music on a flatbed truck grew over the decades to become one of Austin’s holiday staples, with more than a quarter of a million toys donated for Central Texas children since its inception.

“I always measured myself against what he had accomplished and what he had done. I’ve been chasing that guy all my life,” Continental Club owner Steve Wertheimer said of Young, whom he befriended in 1986 over their shared passion for classic cars. “He’s been a mentor and a huge influence on the way I run my businesses and treat people. And the philanthropic things he’s done for the community, it’s pretty awe-inspiring.”

Young and Zapp opened Shady Grove in 1992, with a design aesthetic and ambience inspired by Garner State Park. With its family-friendly vibe, unfussy Southwestern comfort food and long-running Unplugged at the Grove music series, which attracted some of the biggest names in Americana music, the restaurant, which closed early in the pandemic in 2020, was a uniquely Austin treasure that felt like the city’s unofficial backyard.

The Chuy’s founders created another iconic Austin outpost when they partnered with Duffy Oyster to open the Polynesian-inspired Hula Hut on Lake Austin in 1993. Young and Zapp sold their interest in that business in 2009.

While it’s hard to imagine that two guys opening a small Tex-Mex dive in 1982 had major ambitions, Bunda said Young was a visionary who always had a plan.

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“It took us longer to get there than he imagined it would, but he was relentless in his pursuit of making Chuy’s what he wanted it to become,” Bunda said.

Young and Zapp sold a majority of the business to a private equity firm in 2006. Chuy’s went public in 2012 (CHUY), with Young staying on for four years as co-chairman of the board and an unofficial brand ambassador who would regale employees across the country with Chuy’s origin story and sign autographs.

Young retired from the company in 2017. At the time of his death, Chuy’s had 101 locations in 17 states, from Colorado to Maryland. The restaurant’s stock, which was priced at $13 in 2012, was trading around $40 per share, higher than shares of Cheesecake Factory Inc. and Brinker International (owner of Chili’s).

Young loved to travel, whether to Europe to see art or California to showcase his cars, and was a collector of art, guitars and, most notably, cars. The restaurateur was a founding member of the Kontinental Car Club and helped Wertheimer start the annual Lonestar Round Up.

Wertheimer said Young, whose prize possession was a 1960 Gary Howard custom-built Chevrolet Impala named Exotica, was a constant source of support for people throughout every avenue of his personal and professional lives.

“He always wanted to help. He shared his success with a lot of people. He didn’t keep it to himself,” Wertheimer said. “He shared it with people who worked for him. He shared it with Blue Santa, and a lot of friends of ours who were car people and car builders, and a lot of artists. He was just one of those guys whose generosity was above and beyond the call of duty.”

Young’s life burst into a new dimension in 1999. Milam and a friend were taking introductory Italian lessons with Young at Inlingua Language School to prepare for a trip abroad. The two friends noticed that Young was taking his study of the language more seriously than they. When the Chuy’s owner commented on how he was charmed by their teacher, Young’s friends knew something was afoot.

Young soon asked the teacher, Verona, Italy, native Diana Zantedeschi, over for a spaghetti dinner. The two married in 2001 and later welcomed daughters Emily Maria Young and Grace Marie Young.

"Mike was one of the most passionate people I've known.," Wertheimer said. "Back when he was still part of the single society, it was cars and art, and he supported so many builders and artists, and then he married Diana and had two beautiful girls and carried forth that same passion when he transitioned to becoming the best husband and father any family could ask for. We all wanted to be Mike's kid. The best of the best."

Along with his wife and daughters, Young is survived by his sister-in-law, Margo Young of Virginia. Details of a service have not been announced. Donations in Mike Young’s name can be made to Give Kids the World Village, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and MD Anderson Cancer Center.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Chuy's co-founder Mike Young, who helped define Austin, dies at 74