Will Oscar for Sandra Bullock Swamp Bess?

One thing Austin has never had is an actress who has won an academy award for Best Actress. Congratulations Sandra Bullock. But Austin has also never had an academy award winning actress who owns a fairly visible restaurant on 6th St. called Bess.

You think it was bad before when celebrity gawkers would turn away in abject disappointment from a failure to catch a glimpse of Austin’s resident female superstar. Imagine what it will be like now? Sandy has won the big one: the greatest and most coveted prize in Hollywood. She has achieved iconic status and that usually carries with it a certain burden: particularly when the actor in question owns a restaurant. Because whether she is there or not, her fans, or those who simply want to be around celebrity, are gong to inundate this place.

I like Bess well enough. But it’s still a work in progress. I feel it may someday become a really great restaurant. But I fear that Sandy’s enhanced status in the celebrity world may snuff out the candle of creativity that has recently been in evidence at this little bistro.

So here’s my decidedly unsolicited advice for Sandra. Stay away from Bess. No Sandy glimpses. No brief visits. Don’t do anything to fuel the buzz. Let Bess continue to be this neat little restaurant with a cool chef and a competent wait staff. Let your staff evolve this place, with your input of course. But now is the time to be an absentee owner, at least physically. This is the ultimate price of fame. You don’t want Bess to become a curiosity. But then I don’t think you ever did.

So all you celebrity seekers: if you must be around some local lunar module head over to Katz’s Deli. After all jovial owner Marc Katz did finish with 12% of the vote in the Lieutenant Governor’s primary. It’s not the Oscar but what the hell, right?