Threadgill’s WHQ Signs New Lease

Threadgill’s proprietor Eddie Wilson confirmed late Wednesday afternoon that he’s inked a lease keeping his iconic restaurant and music venue on Riverside open for a few more years.

Just last month, the owner and his wife, Sandra Wilson, notified employees that Threadgill’s World Headquarters would close down after South by Southwest 2018. At that time, their lease had run out and they’d been unsuccessful at getting the landlord to accept the new contract they’d presented. That changed this week.

“It’s a way-too-complicated sort of thing,” admitted Wilson. “Basically I got a piece of paper that will keep me busy concentrating on food and butts-in-seats for a while.”

He elaborated only to say the lease guarantees him three more years on the increasingly valuable property at 301 W. Riverside that he’s occupied since the mid Nineties.

“It’s a big relief, but it’s not a career win or anything,” chuckled the businessman, who galvanized Austin’s music culture in the Seventies with his Armadillo World Headquarters. “I still have the challenge of getting by in a boom town.”

Indeed, this short-term lease should be viewed as a stay-of-execution, since the property remains ripe for major development. Wilson knows this better than anyone. In the leather satchel often at his side, brimming with fascinating historical documents, there’s a telling document – one likely pointing toward the future: an artist’s rendering of a skyscraper with Threadgill’s World Headquarters at its bottom floor.