• Originally published July 30, 2008 at 11:32 p.m., updated July 30, 2008 at 11:32 p.m.

“To open a shop is easy; to keep it open is an art.”

Chinese Proverb

One of the great traditions I enjoyed with my brother through the years was to sit down to an agreeable meal at one of the Steak & Ale restaurants in Houston.

It was a great atmosphere, and we always seemed to get a friendly and efficient waitress or waiter. There was never any hurry at Steak & Ale. Brother John and I would sit and talk, and John introduced me to the Kensington Club Steak, which I still hold dear as the tastiest steak I’ve ever eaten.

A good crowd always seemed to be in evidence at Steak & Ale. The prices were reasonable for the quality of the food.

So imagine my shock when I read that the chain is filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Now, that’s the bad one. Chapter 11 usually means some kind of reorganization and debt payment schedule, but the dreaded “7” means you’re going to liquidate what you can, pay what debts you can, and shut your doors.

True, some restaurants not owned by Steak & Ale’s parent company will remain open (at least for now), but it looks like a whole bunch of them will close down.

I lost John more than two years ago, but he would have taken this news very hard. Oh, how we both loved those Kensington Club Steaks!

And, as if losing Steak & Ale weren’t enough, now Bennigan’s is filing Chapter 7, too. We lost our Bennigan’s here in Victoria a couple of years back, but my fondest memories of that restaurant are from Colorado.

When I lived and worked in Boulder, Colo. (that’s the Mork and Mindy town from TV), back in the early ’80s, Bennigan’s was the place to gather after work, have a cool drink and share some of those great nachos they made.

I always associated Bennigan’s with good friends and good times, and seeing them go under is like another knife wound in my side.

What’s going on with this economy?

Even when I went to pick up my dry cleaning at Modern Cleaners earlier this week, I was told they were closing their doors. An employee said cleaning solutions and equipment had gotten so high they couldn’t make a profit.

And even though I’m not a Starbucks regular, I hate to read that one of their two stores here is scheduled for closing.

I’ve always tried to be a guy who sees the glass half full rather than half empty, but boy, it’s getting hard to feel positive about these economic times when you see stuff like this going on all around you.

Still, if you look around the world, you’ll see plenty of examples of people who can only wish they had it as good as we do.

While we worry about where our next mocha latte is coming from, people in a lot of Third World nations actually worry about whether they can feed their kids enough to keep them healthy – or even just alive.

The truth is, I guess we Americans are just plain spoiled.

But, I sure would have liked just one more Kensington Club Steak with my beloved brother John at the table with me.

Jim Bishop is a senior editor for the Advocate. Leave him a message at 361-574-1210 or jbishop@vicad.com or comment on this column at www.victoriaadvocate.com

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