Dish-Houston

After years of speculation, rumor and termoil the lower Westheimer institution, La Strada finally shut it's doors. There have been problems but the worst of them have been since the 2002 fire which closed the location for over a year.

Some people feel the feeling and spirit of the place burned out with the fire. Instead of a happy place for folks to gather, patrons feel that it became too 'up-scale".  Everyone one knows you can't be what you aren't and the original La Strada was an accepting melting pot for all types. La Strada basically started Sunday Funday.

Online a former parton lamented:

 "Used to love Sunday brunches there! Tossing Jell-o shots and flying paper airplanes made from gay porn magazines along with spontaneous line dancing and roundhouse showtune chorales. Now it is a morgue."

In 2004, a B4-U-Eat reviewer had this to say about the post-fire Sunday brunch scene at La Strada:

"Remember when Sunday was La Strada? Remember when the bellinis flowed, the beads flew and the crowd was as colorful as the confetti? The bellinis are now in plastic, the beads are outlawed and the channel was changed from Queer as Folk to Sex in the City. What fool decided to "straighten" out Sunday?"

Of course it's no secret they didn't seem to be trying to bring themselves back. Houston have been opening new restaurant after new restaurant almost every week for the past half year at least and they didn't come out with even one new dish. They just didn't keep up.

La Strada opened in 1986. Ten years later, owner Aldo Catania opened a Galleria-area location, which closed in 2007. In 2002, a fire closed the Montrose location, and it didn't reopen until 2004. Last March, the Montrose location declared for bankruptcy over taxes owed to the state, citing assets of less than $50,000 and debts of one to ten million dollars.

The owner could not be reached for comment.