Mark Katz is the owner and proprietor of Katz's restaurant located in Austin, Texas. He is a bit of a local celebrity due mainly to his repeated appearances in commercials for his restaurant where he can be heard to spout, "I gotta tell ya, Katz's never closes!" His bald head and winning smile are instantly recognizable to the majority of Austinites.
He recently tried to parley his local reknown into an unsuccesful bid for mayor of Austin, losing to Will Wynn. He ran a campaign whose most notable stance was vowing to eliminate city-funded lobbying of the state legislature. In the end, many political analysts felt that although his business savvy is apparent, he lacked the experience to be productive in Austin's highly polarized political climate.
In the mid 90s Marc went into semi-retirement, turning over the running of his restaurant to son Barry Katz. Barry allegedly used funds from the restaurant to finance a new restaurant in Houston, also called Katz's. This prompted a spate of lawsuits back and forth between father and son, and put the original restaurant in danger of being liquidated to settle legal debts. An eleventh hour compromise wound up with Marc taking full control and ownership of the restaurant back and Barry leaving to run his own venture in Houston, which is no longer affiliated with its namesake in Austin.
One can only assume that they are not on the best of terms.
| 
