Please help us support Hoover Alexander as he steps into retirement after nearly 50 years of feeding, mentoring, and caring for Austin. As a native East Austinite, fifth-generation Texan, and respected elder in this community, Hoover has spent his life creating spaces where people feel welcomed, seen, and connected.

For decades, Hoover has helped make Austin feel like Austin. From his early days at Night Hawk to opening Hoover’s Cooking on Manor Road in 1998, Hoover built a career around hospitality, generosity, and community. His restaurant became a beloved gathering place where people from all backgrounds could sit together over great food and feel at home.

Through enormous changes in Austin and the challenges facing local restaurants in recent years, Hoover continued showing up for his community with warmth, humor, and grace.

Like many independent restaurant owners, Hoover spent his life pouring everything back into the business, his staff, and the people around him. Restaurant work is demanding, unpredictable, and often leaves little room for the kinds of long-term financial safety nets many people take for granted. The last several years, especially after COVID, were difficult for small, locally owned restaurants and the people behind them.

Now, after decades of service, resilience, and hospitality, Hoover is entering a new chapter. As he has put it, he is not so much retiring as “re-wiring," finding new ways to stay connected, engaged, and in service to the community he loves.

This campaign is an opportunity for the community he has fed, supported, and welcomed for so many years to give something back to him as he makes that transition.

Every contribution helps honor Hoover’s extraordinary legacy while also providing support and stability after a lifetime spent serving others.

If Hoover’s Cooking was ever part of your life, we invite you to contribute and help celebrate a true Austin legend.

All donations will go directly to Chef Alexander as he embarks on this well-deserved next chapter and continues engaging with the community in new ways.

Thank you so much for your support!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUDFys4PhM0