Guadalupe Street Says Goodbye to an 800-Pound Dinosaur and 45 Years of Wheatsville Co-Op

By Adele Doat

Reporting Texas

Halloween cobwebs cover empty shelves at the Wheatsville Co-op on Guadalupe Street, sending a message of quiet surrender to financial struggle for a store that has long held a special place in the community.

“It seeps magic,” General Manager Tanya Carney said. “It really is a testament to what old Austin was when the original Wheatsville location was over on 29th and Lamar.”

Sunday was the grocery store’s final day on Guadalupe. Founded in 1976 by a group of UT students, the co-op moved to Guadalupe Street in 1981, Carney said. From now on, Wheatsville will focus its efforts on its South Lamar Boulevard location, she said.  

Over the past decade, the Guadalupe location has lost more than half of its 2013 peak revenue of $18,611,109, the company said in a 2024 news release announcing it would close the store in 2026 when its lease expired. Sales further declined after the notice, as many people thought the store would close immediately, front-end manager Vanessa Orellana said. 

Construction of the Project Connect Orange Rail Line on Guadalupe, which could start in 2027 and end in 2033, threatened even greater revenue losses and deterred any plans for lease renewal. 

“With rising occupancy costs, the uncertainty of being able to operate with future construction at this location, and then all of the other economic uncertainty that people are being faced with, it was the most responsible decision for us to close it right now,” Carney said. 

Orellana, who has worked at the store for seven years, said she has dreaded this moment for a long time. She said the threat of a shutdown has hung over her head for the past two years. 

“I was honestly so sad and kind of in denial about this place closing, and then the date just kept getting closer,” Orellana said. “Now it’s here.”

She spent the last two weeks consolidating the aisles as the store stopped ordering new products and waited for existing stock to sell out, while accelerating the sell-off with 30% discounts on all packaged goods.  

“We’re just trying to make it look as presentable and normal as possible for the remainder that we’re here,” Orellana said. 

Yet while employees had time to say their goodbyes to the historic location, its closure still came as a surprise to some shoppers. 

 

Kristine Kovach and her wife, Jean Castillo, did not expect to witness history Sunday morning while running an errand to get milk at their favorite grocery store. They noticed activity on the roof as a truck-crane was about to remove Mangiasaurus, the Guadalupe store’s iconic dinosaur mascot. 

Kovach said she first visited the store in April 1986. Since then, she has remained a devoted customer, visiting it while in labor within an hour of giving birth during her first marriage.

“I was putting my head in the cold case because I was so hot,” she said, confessing to having scared away the employee at the counter. 

What made the store special in her eyes was the “human element.” She would later bring her children to the store, buying dolmas for her daughter and iron supplements she could not find elsewhere.  

She remembered how her children reacted when Mangiasaurus was moved from the rooftop of Mangia Pizza, its original owner, to the other side of the street. 

“Right after it got moved, my kids were like, ‘Oh, thank God. That’s where it belongs. It belongs with Wheatsville,” Kovach said. 

To his creator, Dale Whistler, Mangiasaurus’s new relocation marks the end of an era. 

“He was like a child without a home,” Whistler said, recalling the last time Mangiasaurus was before Wheatsville proposed to adopt him. “They said, ‘Yeah, come to our roof,’ and he’s been there ever since.” 

The 800-pound dinosaur, carved from polystyrene styrofoam with a hard acrylic coating, now sits in the produce section of the other store on South Lamar.  

Even though Mangiasaurus has found his place in South Lamar, other members of the staff may not be as lucky. 

Orellana said she is afraid of what the future holds. 

“I just don’t know if they have room on the schedule for me to work the whole time,” Orellana said. 

If she cannot work full time, she will have to find another job. 

Kaleb Morton, her coworker, does not know whether a future at South Lamar will be sustainable. Since he doesn’t have a car, he would have to take the bus, a 45-minute ride.  

The closure of the Guadalupe location also reduces pedestrian access to grocery stores in the North Campus area. University of Texas physics graduate student Nerai Karthikeyan said she chooses this store for most of her grocery shopping because of its convenience and the availability of local and vegan products.  

“I like coming here because it’s right by the bus stop, so I can just walk in and get my groceries for the day,” she said. “I might have to schedule my grocery runs more rigorously.”

Carney said there will be enough room for the Guadalupe employees at the other location.

“We’ve been working on our staffing plan for over the last 12 months,” she said. 

After watching Mangiasaurus drive away, Carney said she feels relieved that this is all behind her and that she will no longer have to worry about this store’s survival.

With tears in her eyes, she said she felt proud of her staff and the Wheatsville community that came to celebrate and mourn the end of a chapter. 

“What makes it so special,” she said,” is that everybody comes together under the belief that we really are stronger together.”