Tim Love On Reopening Lonesome Dove

Back in August, Tim Love's flagship Lonesome Dove was closed after a fire severely damaged the restaurant, and it seems the reopening is still on track. Love, who planned to reopen within 60 days, tweeted earlier this month, "Lonesome Dove is swiftly under reconstruction. Will reopen in mid October. Very excited to get my baby back!"

When we ran into the chef at Hellmann's 100th birthday bash (where they created the world's longest picnic table), we asked him how the rebuilding was going. "Truly it's like building the restaurant all over again, which is really odd for me," Love said. "That restaurant is my entire life, it's my whole career, it's everything that I have."

Rebuilding the restaurant means adding different lighting, and redoing the power to make the restaurant more efficient, Love said. But it also means losing some of the original structure and work. "It's been a really weird emotional roller coaster of like, getting excited because I'm getting new equipment, and being upset because I'm tearing down a wall that I built myself," Love said.

There's still no official reopening date, but Love notes that it will reopen almost immediately after his team finishes up with Austin City Limits, which takes place Oct. 4 to 6 and Oct. 11 to 13.