Luby’s Cafeterias are cultural icons. From being represented as ” Texas cuisine ” in media to a gathering place for groups and families, Luby’s has made its place in Texas History. This connection to the cafeteria chain made it even more shocking when Luby’s announced plans to liquidate in 2020. While we’re not here to talk about the liquidation of Luby’s, we’re here to talk about a side effect: the spin-off of Luby’s Culinary Services. In addition to operating free-standing cafeterias, Luby’s Inc. had a large business operating “embedded cafeterias” in hospitals, colleges, and municipal buildings. These cafeterias sometimes used the Luby’s Etc… and Fuddrucker’s branding, but some were unbranded. With the liquidation of Luby’s Inc., much was left up in the air about what would happen to LCS. Supposedly, this had been a very strong sector of Luby’s business, but with the main company intent on shutting down, they needed someone to take over. In the retail community, we could track that some Luby’s Etc… locations seemed to be still operating, but others had seemingly closed. We could not figure out what truly happened, that is, until I had jury duty.
I’ve been called for jury duty a few times in my life, but have never been selected. I was hoping this day would be the same, in and out before lunch with a chance to stop at a Luby’s Etc… on the way out. However, this wasn’t the case, to spare the details, while I wasn’t selected, the jury selection process took such a long time we had to break for lunch, and, I, along with the other jurors, found ourselves heading down to the Luby’s Etc… this location in the Harris County Corthouse had signs throughout the hallway directing potential customers to its hidden basement location. When I went downstairs, I was surprised to see that this Luby’s Etc… was quite nice. It used a variation on the final theme, which Luby’s Inc. had experimented with and was doing well. The Fuddruckers side had lost its branding, becoming known as Grill Etc…, but mainly served the same fare. The food on both sides was quite good, and many grab-and-go options were also served out of a large cooler. Seeing these restaurants operating was a good sign, but I knew they were no longer under Luby’s, so who was running them? Well, that took a bit more sleuthing to figure out, but what I found was that Pappas seems to have some sort of operational agreement to run these locations, and has added more since Luby’s Inc. went under. For folks encountering these embedded cafeterias, most won’t think twice about the Luby’s name, but it’s reassuring to know that it still holds value.
