The Austin Dish by LASA Ezine

The Aust n

The Ins and Outs of Running a Restaurant

DISH

Business in the Food Truck Industry May 2015

Austin and the Locavore Movement

The History of Sweetish Hill Bakery

Photo By: INKED FINGERS

Keeping Austin epicurien since 1999

1500 Spyglass Austin, 78746 (512) 732-0303

Photo By: ROBB1E

Table of Contents Photo By: EVA LEGGE

Letter From the Editor

Contributors’ Page

The The Chef’s Best Creation ups and downs of owning and running a restaurant

Keeping Austin Weird Exploring seven completely bizarre foods from

Photo By: INKED FINGERS

some of Austin’s favorite restuarants.

Homemade

Exploring Austin’s developing locavore movement and the influences behind it

Trucks on a Roll

The history and statistics of food trucks.

CultureThe business Commixture behind the food truck industry.

Photo By: EVA LEGGE

The Ultimate Austin Cookie Guide

The search for Austin’s best chocolate chip cookie.

Deep in the Heart

The history and culture of Sweetish Hill, Austin’s oldest European bakery.

Top Ten Chefs in America May 2015 | The Austin Dish 3

Meet the Staff

va Legge has been living in Austin all of her life, and is happy to have experienced many of the things that “keep Austin weird.” She enjoys all of the amazing food Austin has to offer, such as tacos from Tacodeli, and chocolate chip cooked from Foodheads. Eva sings with Conspirare choir and plays piano in Jazz Band. She is an avid gardener and reader, and goes outside whenever she can.

nna Poterek was born on National Cinnamon Crescent Croissant Day, and has lived in Austin ever since. She loves Upper Crust’s pecan pie, macaroni and cheese, and potatoes (prepared any way). Anna plays soccer for the River City Rangers Soccer Club and the LBJ Girls’ Varsity soccer team and she loves to read whenever she can.

aniel Bonnecaze was born in Austin and still lives in Austin. He enjoys reading adventure books and computer programming, and of course, eating. He also has been playing baseball for a while. Daniel likes to try new food at different restaurants. One of his favorite restaurants is a tapas restaurant named Barlata’s.

than Lim was born and raised in Austin, Texas and enjoys sleeping for 10 or more hours. He is a food aficionado and loves eating potato chips and other things that are horrible for your body. Besides his food addiction, Ethan is a Martial Arts world champion and a second degree black belt.

The Austin Dish| May 2015

Letter From the Editors Dear Readers, This magazine is meant for you to get out of your comfort zone, try something new or learn something new in the culinary world of Austin, TX. This magazine wants to help you get a different perspective of food in Austin by showing what goes on away from the view of the public. We want to shine a new light on the unspoken features of the culinary world in Austin. From business among a food truck, to the importance of having locally grown food in the community; the history of a bakery to the in and outs of opening and owning a restaurant. We also want to inform you on the little known facts, like the history of the food truck, how cookies all around Austin compare to eachother, the strange foods around Austin, or the top chefs in America. We were inspired to make this magazine with you because we all have a mutual appreciation for food and wanted to share with everyone. We made sure to go in depth to get all the information that goes into the stories to make it clear and well reported, and made visual representations as aesthetically pleasing as possible for your enjoyment , and guarantee satisfaction in reading our magazine Thank you and Enjoy! Sincerely,

Photo By: EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

The Austin Dish| May 2015

The Chef’s Best Creation The Business Behind the Restaurant Story By: DANIEL BONNECAZE

Waiters and waitresses are hurriedly bringing menus and steaming, hot dishes to the tables of eager diners. Cooks are hurriedly preparing dishes in the kitchen. Even though these chefs have made these dishes hundreds of thousands of times, there’s still an intense, rushed feeling in the air. While all this mayhem is going on in the back of the Restaurant, the front of the house is enjoying the ambience and the friendly smile of the staff, oblivious to what’s going on in the kitchen. A restaurant is a hard thing to manage. When it comes to the restaurant business it’s more in depth than commonly thought of. The hardest part of the restaurant business, the process of making a restaurant. There’s the people, the food, and the time commitment. A restaurant is much more than just serving food. It is a challenge, to have to account for the people, the creation of new ideas. A restaurant is more complicated on the inside than on the outside.

The first part of the path of restaurant ownership is the concept of the restaurant itself. The idea of opening a restaurant or getting inspired to open a restaurant is, of course, the simplest part. The idea or inspiration can come in many different ways, for Co-founder, Mark Paul of the restaurant, Wink, it came from firsthand experience working at a restaurant. “I enjoyed the interaction with all different kinds of people, I liked the planning of an evening or day or meal or whatever and I liked the uncertainty of it because it’s always a great show, it’s a little bit of theater, a little bit of science, a little bit of, ‘Oh man,’ the light bulb just went out, so that’s why I love doing and that’s what got me involved in the first place,” Paul said. When wanting to own a restaurant, ideas are different than inspirations because inspiration is random, but an idea is something you formulate.

“

-Tyson Cole

The Austin Dish | May 2015

“I opened Uchiko because we were trying to grow our talent and we were trying to increase the reach we had beyond just one single restaurant, and we thought we had the opportunity to really do some new innovative things and with its new square feet to do that,” Tyson Cole said. When the idea of making the restaurant is set and done, there’s the pre-work. The pre-work is mostly the financial part of the restaurant, but necessary part of the process. It is, by far, the most important part of the first phase of owning a restaurant. “You have to do the financial end of things, you have to decide the amount of money you need to raise, how much money the bank is able to give you and how much money you want to rest,” Paul said. Photo by:HSUOFFICE.COM

I opened Uchiko because we were trying to grow our talent and we were trying to increase the reach we had beyond just one single restaurant, and we thought we had the opportunity to really do some new innovative things and with its new square feet to do that

Ideas can come in different sizes or shapes, the idea for opening a restaurant can be about wanting to try something new, but Uchiko founder, Tyson Cole, who created Uchiko after his first successful restaurant, Uchi, did it to try something new.

Uchiko is one of the hippest restaurants in town

Opening day, is an historic day in a culinary career. It’s the day that marks whether the restaurant is ready to run. It’s different for different restaurants. When Paul opened Wink it was a bit of a disappointment, he said.

Photo by: MAGSEATS.BLOGSPOT.COM

“Franklin was our first full-sell account and we make their little dessert tarts, but there pies, and we’ve been working with them for over five years now,” Brinckmann said. A restaurant can have certain benefits as well, depending on what their strategy is, or how it’s set up. When Paul set up Wink he made sure to give an advantage to him and his team.

“My partner and I were sitting at a table, and by that point we had a glass of wine because you’re sitting there and nobody’s coming in and you’re sitting there and nobody’s coming in and you think, ‘Boy, I sure hope somebody shows,’” Paul said. After the first day, then a couple of weeks, a couple of months, and a couple of years, the strategy of owning a restaurant is down. Though you may have the strategy down, that does not make the processes or aspects of the restaurant business easy. There are different parts: managing the people, the money, or the time commitments. For Cole, it’s managing the people. “The hardest part of owning a restaurant is, you know it’s the people, again it’s all about the people, you’re only as good as your people,” Cole said.

This is one of the many dishes Wink serves. This is a scallop dish

There are, of course, positive outcomes of owning a restaurant.

“Because we are an independent restaurant, we have a certain amount of whittle room that we are able to take advantage of when it comes to economic issues,” Paul said.

Good things can be started or created, things that can significantly benefit the restaurant. The thing that helped Brinckmann was making a partnership with Franklin BBQ to make their desserts. Photo by: MAXAVENUE.COM

However, for Melissa Brinckmann, founder of Cake and Spoon Baking Company, the hardest part is the financial end of things. She’s more of a hands-on person, and prefers to work in the kitchen, instead of handling the business side. “I don’t really like numbers that much, and that’s the most difficult thing to sit down and write down all your checks, pay the bills, try to work on figures and bids and quotes for weddings and whatever because I’m not, I’m a hands-on person,” Melissa Brinckmann said.

Wink is a very popular and esteemed restaurant in Austin

The Austin Dish| May 2015

Photo By: ENDOEDIBLES.COM

“

The Cake and Spoon always have a stand during the farmer’s market

“Yeah, I wish that I could learn more new stuff, that’s the one thing that I really feel like I could learn more…,”Brinckmann said. The future of a restaurant can vary immensely. Cole’s preferred is to reach out and open new restaurants, and use these restaurants to try new things, and new flavors, like when he opened Uchiko. “The goal for me right now is to continue to grow Uchi, we’re opening in the Dallas market, this year sometime in spring, probably look outside of the state, and sometime after that I’m opening a different Asian concept in South Austin by the end of the year,” Cole said.

The Austin Dish | May 2015

“

When you run a restaurant there’s things that you wished you could have done, things that you regret not doing. It could be anything from wanting to make new dishes, or wanting to have hired a certain person, but in the case of Brinckmann, it’s wanting to learn new things.

“Franklin was our first full-sell account and we make their little dessert tarts, but there pies, and we’ve been working with them for over five years -Melissa now,” Brinckmann

On the other hand, Paul just wants to stick with what he’s been doing for the last 14 years or so, and just divulge a little more in the different industries within the restaurant business. “I will certainly be in involved in the culinary industry, The restaurant industry, the hospitality industry, the entertainment industry because in some ways that’s what we’ve evolved into at some level,” Paul said.

For Brinckmann, she wants to up her game a little, and cater or tend to higher prospects, like weddings, big parties, and other things of that nature. Her main reason for doing this is because that’s what brings the bacon. “Future for us is kind of doing more party desserts and wedding cakes, that’s really where the money is,” Brinckmann said. The restaurant is certainly, much more to the eye than expected. The process is the hardest part. It is a process of positivity and negativity, a process full of excruciatingly tedious processes, and thankful outcomes. When going through the process of opening a restaurant, it’s a mixed bag. The three restaurateurs in this story had different experiences. Cole opened his restaurant to try new things, Paul, opened his restaurant because he got interested in the restaurant business, and Brinckmann opened her baking company because she believed she could do a better job than her former company.

Photo By: COROFLOT.COM

Uchi is a very popular restaurant that is usually be crowded

“

“I enjoyed the interaction with all different kinds of people, I liked the planning of an evening or day or meal or whatever and I liked the uncertainty of it because it’s always a great show, it’s a little bit of theater, a little bit of science, a little bit of, ‘Oh man,’ the light bulb just went out, so that’s why I love doing and that’s what got me involved in the first place,”

-Mark Paul

The Austin Dish| May 2015

Keeping Austin Weird

Fried Chicken Gizzards Lucy’s Fried Chicken 5408 Burnet Rd, Austin, TX 78756 (512) 514-0664 As its name suggests, Lucy’s Fried Chicken appeals to classic fried chicken enthusiast, but it also appeals to the animal intestine lovers of the world with their gizzards, deep fried and marinated in Lucy’s “Secret Buttermilk Blend” and served with dill cream sauce.

By: ANNA POTEREK From North Burnet to South First Street, Austin foodies can fulfill their wildest dreams with these seven eccentric foods.

Exp y.

The Mighty Cone 1720 Barton Springs Rd, 78704 (512) 383-9609

Mo pac

360

Tacos in a Cone

Lam ar B lvd .

Tacos in a cone are exactly what they seem- a taco (often with deep-fried ingredients) served in a paper drinking cup. The unusal serving method was developed for ACL Music Festival, so the tacos would be easier to eat while walking around.

Beer ‘n Ramen East Side King 2310 S Lamar Blvd. Suite 101, 78702 (512) 383-8382

East Side King’s menu is a combination of Japanese style and American ingredients. Case in point, the Sapporo Beer Miso Ramen. The presence of vegetables and meat is typical, but the addition of beer foam is not.

Art by: ANNA POTEREK

Information Courtesy of: RESTAURANT WEBSITES

Lil’ Nookies 2222

Torchy’s Tacos 2801 Guadalupe St, Austin, TX 78705 (512) 494-8226

290

Torchy’s Tacos isn’t afraid to test the salty- sweet combo, and they do it deliciously with the Lil’ Nookie. The Lil’ Nookie is a deep fried chocolate chip cookie topped with powdered sugar and a cherry.

183

Deep Fried Octopus

I- 3

Love Balls Bus 2908 Fruth St, Austin, TX 78705 (512) 765-6286 Balls of deep fried octopus, better known in Japanese as Tako Kara-age (“tako” means octopus, and “karaage” is a cooking style equivalent to deep-frying) are more common in Japan than Austin, though Austin does have a fair (and growing) number of enthusiasts.

969

Green Eggs & Ham Salty Sow 1917 Manor Rd, Austin, TX 78722 (512) 391-2337 Salty Sow’s take on Dr. Seuss’s nonsensical food is chopped ham hocks served wtha slow-cooked egg served in a jar with grits and basil-parmesan sauce to create the famous green color.

Donut Sandwiches

ra lo o C

Gourdough’s Doughnuts 1503 S 1st St, Austin, TX 78704 (512) 707-1050

183

Gourdough’s Donuts mixes lunch and dinner with breakfast in their sandwiches. Every sandwich has a donut for the bun-- whether the it has bacon wrapped meatloaf or cranberry habañero jam.

r ve i R

HOMEMADE

The answer is in your own backyard. Story by: EVA LEGGE

Photo by: EVA LEGGE

‘Ooh!... this would be a farm’,” Carol Sayle said. “We could make it a farm, and we could live in the farmhouse, and just step right out the door and go to work!

just out at any downtown restaurant,” Cote said.

the country, and definitely the first urban farm in Austin,” Sayle said.

The rabbit hearts are what made Sonya Cote’s boyfriend fall in love with her. Cote, the highly-esteemed chef and owner of Eden East, prepares her annual Valentine’s Day dinner: a five-course meal featuring her signature dish, rabbit hearts. Every Valentine’s Day, around 75 diners crowd around six long tables and enjoy an enchanting meal. The key to this magical dining experience is Eden East’s secret ingredient, farm-fresh produce. While the diners enjoy their rabbit hearts, grilled Texas sirloins and dark chocolate tortes, they can gaze out to the neat rows of collard greens and brussels sprouts at Springdale Farm and see from where the food on their plate came. “It brings people out here to see where their food’s growing more than it would

Non-traditional dining venues such as two-year old Eden East have become increasingly popular in Austin, enchanting diners with the phenomenon of a “farm-to-table” meal, while promoting the continuously growing locavore movement, where more and more Austinites are discovering the importance of eating locally-grown food. Eden East sits in a pocket of Springdale Farms, a hopping urban farm three miles east of the capitol. Springdale has only been operational for six years, and wouldn’t even be there if it weren’t for Carol Ann Sayle, co-owner of a farm over twenty years older than Springdale: Boggy Creek Farm.

Though it is true that there were no farms in Austin when Sayle started Boggy Creek Farms with her husband Larry Butler, they were not the first in Austin to have a farm. There used to be countless farms when Austin was more rural.

12 The Austin Dish | May 2015

“We were one of the first urban farms in

“Before the 1920s and 30s, this East Austin area was all farms,” Sayle said. “All of that went away, became warehouses and housing, and by the time we came here in 1992, there were no farms.” n 1991, Sayle and Butler began farming in Milam County, Texas. They sold produce to Whole Foods immediately and opened a small farm stand in front of Wiggy’s Liquor Store in Clarksville as well. Butler and Sayle were not only

Photo by: EVA LEGGE

ahead of their time as modern-day urban farmers, but as early voices in the locavore movement as well. Austin residents were not yet tuned in to the benefits of eating locally sourced food. “When we first started selling in front of the liquor store, we had to explain what ‘organic’ meant,” Sayle said. Although Milam County farm thrived, it was a long drive to Austin to sell their produce. In 1992, Sayle found a five acre piece of fertile land in the Boggy Creek watershed, and their urban farm was born. “We found this property, and we thought ‘Ooh!... this would be a farm’,” Sayle said. “We could make it a farm, and we could live in the farmhouse, and just step right out the door and go to work! This is great!” Boggy Creek Farm is an enchanting escape from the busy city. There is a busyness there, but not is a stressed way. Sayle started her farm for one principal reason- she believes in the importance of locally grown food, and wanted to share her knowledge and beliefs throughout the community.

“

“The reason we wanted to do it was to

If you don’t have fresh food, it’s worthless.

”

-Carol Ann Sayle

Carol Ann Sayle stands in front of the main bed of her vivacious farm.

give people good, clean food,” Sayle said. “If you don’t have fresh food, it’s worthless. If it’s local, you can come, and it’s being harvested right here on our farm. Freshness to us is equally important as organic, or permaculture, or any kind other way of growing things.”

“In California or in Chile or China or wherever that vegetable in the store came from, it was probably once wonderful,” Sayle said. “But when you go through refrigeration--almost freezing, for weeks on end--it all goes away.” Sayle has eyes on the future as.

Cooking food has grown from the mere trying to survive to a quest for quality and cohesion with the palate. With Boggy Creek’s produce, one may achieve both.

“The only other way you could get fresh local food is in your own garden,” she said. “For the future, we will all need to learn how to grow our own food.”

“The arugula is sparky and fierce, more spicy in the summer than anything,” Sayle said. “But in the store, it was just, ‘bleh!,’ this is arugula? It’s flavor, see, there’s no flavor there, and there’s flavor here, and that flavor tells you that it’s fresh.” The minute a vegetable or fruit is picked off the plant, the flavor starts to fade away, Sayle says. The flavor is not the only quality that fades away over time. The C, E, A and some B vitamins deteriorate more and more every day the produce it is packaged, refrigerated and shipped, when it simply could be picked and eaten immediately.

The locavore movement not only has had a big effect on each individual’s health, but it affects the culture, economy, and relations in the entire city of Austin. Change is happening, and it’s for the better. “People are finally kind of rebelling against the trend that we’ve had for the last 50 years, of eating food out of a can and out of a box, and believing that it’s gonna be good for us,” Sayle said. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, over 33 percent of American adults are considered overweight. There is a simple solution to this overwhelming problem. Halt the outsourcing and globalization and look

May 2015 | The Austin Dish 13

in your own back yard. “[The locavore trend] is really an important trend because we have got to change the way this country eats.” Sayle said. This process will not happen overnight, but people such as Carol and Larry Sayle and Dorsey Barger of Hausbar Farms both agree that the key to improving the health of the nation is educating people on what foods contribute to a healthy lifestyle and what doesn’t. Many people are finally opening their eyes to the numerous benefits of local food. “Its all about education; it’s a trend because they’ve educated themselves and now they want to eat this kind of food,” Sayle explained. “Because it’s fresh, it’s organic, it’s nutritious, it’s taking care of the environment.” Dorsey Barger played a key role in the locavore movement as well. She started not only Eastside Cafe, where food is served straight from a garden, but also she co-founded Hausbar Farms, a highlysuccessful urban farm in East Austin. Barger co-founded Eastside Cafe with Elaine Martin in 1988. There was an organic garden already existing on the property when they arrived, which gave them the idea to have their restaurant serve fresh, organic food. They got the old garden up and running again. Now, Eastside Cafe is a popular dining destination. Photo by: DEB LEWIS

Barger looks admiringly at her newborn bunny.

14 The Austin Dish | May 2015

“I had absolutely no idea what to do with vegetables, especially not organic vegetables, and so we brought in people who did know, because we knew that that was just an exceptionally good idea, to grow vegetables right on the property of a restaurant,” Barger said. “My love and fascination for it grew and grew, and then ultimately, I just wanted to see just how much we could actually grow for ourselves, to provide for our restaurant.”

“

We have got to change the way this country eats, and the world.

”

-Carol Ann Sayle

Consequently, Barger sold her share in Eastside Cafe to Martin, and set off on her journey creating a completely environmentally sustainable farm. Hausbar farms, was founded in 2009. Now, it is a beautiful escape from the city, with hens and roosters wandering about, baby bunnies cuddling with their siblings, and a pet goose named Gustavo. Light streams through the leaves and wind quietly rustles through the trees. Hausbar is heavenly and peaceful now, but in 2009, it was completely different. “The farm is two acres,” Barger said. “It

Photo by: DEB LEWIS

Rich, buttery lettuce is nurtured by Barger and her hard working employees.

was pretty much two acres of trash, with three crack houses on it. We figured if we just cleaned the place up enough... it would be something pretty amazing here.” After purchasing the property, Barger embarked on a seemingly impossible task. “In our quest to be sustainable we wanted everything to be improved by our being here, so we dug the 51 beds of vegetables that you see out there, with pitchforks and shovels, instead of tillers and trucks,” Barger said with an expression that she still could not believe what she accomplished. The farmers at Hausbar are completely sustainable in their practice as well. At the back of their farm there is an enormous metal tank. Barger explained that it is a rainwater collection bin has 30,000 gallons of rainwater storage capacity. Hausbar is sustainable in the energy sector as well. They just built a new 26 kilowatt solar panel structure, providing enough energy to cover 75 percent of their energy usage. “We don’t use lawn mowers, we have donkeys that do the mowing for the pasture,” Barger said. “Nothing’s done uniformly, but it’s done sustainably.”

Photo by: DEB LEWIS

One of Hausbar’s many chickens surveys the playing field, planning her next move.

Barger did not just wake up one morning and suddenly develop a keen awareness of Mother Earth. She had many influences on her morals and beliefs when it comes to the environment, and one of these was her father. “I had been raised by a father who was very, tuned into ecology issues, to treating, the world with respect and to making things better instead of worse,” Barger said. “So when I arrived at Eastside, I wanted to have an organic garden” Her other major influence was Carla Blumberg, the woman that owned Eastside before her. As Barger described Blumberg, her eyes twinkled and a smile crossed over her face at her memory. “The woman that had had the restaurant, that had occupied that spot before, had been composting the food from her restaurant, and had also been recycling all cans and bottles, and paper,” Barger said. “So...that was a springboard...to even go on and take it farther, so to go from my father’s influence to that wonderful woman and her restaurant, to having a farm that even got more crazy, radical, wild and sustainable.”

Local food is a very important part of Barger’s life as well. Not only does she believe it improves the health and flavor of a meal, but she explained a whole other benefit. The locavore movement helps Austin’s sustainability. “There needs to also be a whole other commitment and that is to doing thing locally,” Barger said. Barger and Martin often credited with having a large effect on the locavore movement in Austin. The Austin Chronicle said Barger and Elaine Martin, the co-owner of Eastside Cafe, were “...true pioneers of the Austin locavore movement.” “People often say to us that we were the restaurant that really started, the locavore movement in Austin,” Barger explained. “I do think that we did, we were there at the beginning, of what became, I think now, a true locavore movement.” If one were to break down all of the sustainability benefits of local food, they would find that there is one major factor

just in the shipment sector. “There’s so much pollution that goes on in bringing that organic produce from California, to Texas, let’s say, that it’s not enough just to eat organically,” Barger said. The locavore movement, if fully set into motion, will greatly benefit Austin’s economy as well. “Not only is it not enough for pollution reasons, but it’s also not enough because it doesn’t make any sense to depend on somebody else for your food, and so we need to be supporting local farmers,” Barger said. “If I buy from them, I’m gonna encourage more people to enter into professions that will provide them with free, clean, sustainable, healthy, humane, sources of food for me.” The multiplier effect is a concept whose outcomes change drastically based on the locality of sustenance, Barger says. When one buys produce from a grocery store, eight cents on the dollar goes to the farmer. The other 92 cents go to the packager, the middlemen and the processor. However, the converse is true when it comes Photo by: DEB LEWIS

“This is Gustavo,” Barger said. He is the sweetest thing you have ever met in your life.”

May 2015 | The Austin Dish 15

to farmer’s markets. When a customer buys produce from there, 92 cents on the dollar goes to the farmer, and eight cents goes to the farmer’s market. The multiplier effect is the outcome of this circumstance. If farmers in Austin receive 92 cents rather than eight, then that farmer will have much more money to spend in the same economy. “So by spending locally we are actually supporting everyone who lives in our area, and hopefully providing clean jobs, livable wages, non-polluting agriculture,” Barger said. Dorsey’s life practices reflect her idealistic world of health and sustainability. “I eat very little processed food, I don’t eat any fast food, at all and those tend to be the places that really badly affect our health,” Barger said. “That’s bad for me, that’s bad for the people spraying the pesticide or the herbicide in the first place. And, it’s bad for the entire planet.” Barger also believes that going to a

farmer’s market of a farm stand is as far away as you can get from and outsourced restaurant such as McDonalds. “You’re gonna find farmers bringing their goods to you, and that is the best way you can possibly eat- it’s good for your own personal health and it’s so good for the health of our community and the planet,” Barger said. There is a sort of magic to growing and selling local food. “It’s all the people that come here; they’re wonderful! And, we’re all kind of on the same page, so we all kind of agree, that food is important,” Sayle said. Farming and promoting a healthy and sustainable lifestyle is a beautiful art. Everything falls into place when people just look in their backyard. “It’s a really great relationship, classic, for a farmer and a chef to be partners, and I think it kind of gives Austin, like visitors, a real nice taste of being on the east side,”

“We just figured if we cleaned the place up, it would be pretty amazing here,” Barger said.

16 The Austin Dish | May 2015

Cote said. Sonya Cote not only cooks at Eden East to promote Austin’s locavore movement, but also for her love of food. Her rabbit hearts are locally sourced, but she is cooking them because food is her passion. That is the heart of why Sayle, Barger, and Foore started their farms as well. Not only does locally grown food support the economy of Austin and the well being of it’s citizens but it unifies and equalizes, people, just as sitting around the dinner table is, in many cases, the only time when a family is completely together. This is bigger than just ourselves. This affects the entire world, and can be a stepping stone to the world we have been striving for for years, a world of sustainability, companionship, and equality. “[Supporting local farmers] helps build the community,” Cote said. “Food bridges the gaps between anybody, no matter what race, color or religion you are, it brings people together.” Photo by: DEB LEWIS

Photo by: DEB LEWIS

From left to right: Paula Foore, co-owner of Springdale Farms, Sonya Cote, and Glen Foore, Paula’s husband and co-owner of Springdale Farms.

“

[Supporting local farmers] helps build the community. Food bridges the gaps between anybody, no matter what race, color or religion you are, it brings people together.

”

-Sonya Cote

May 2015 | The Austin Dish 17

[ Trucks on a Roll ] By: ETHAN LIM

[1691]

New Amsterdam begins regulating street vendors selling food from carts.

[1892]

Thomas H. Buckley began to create food wagons called the Tile Wagon in Worcester, Massachusetts.

[2008]

Ayr Muir starts the first food truck, located in Boston, specializing in fresh sustainable vegetarian food.

[ Six Stats on Trucks ] 40,000 Dollars.

a food truck can cost as Sovertarting little as $40, 000 and go up to $200, 000 provided the owner

purchases a new truck. Up to $20, 000 can go to permits to sell food and a minimum of $5, 000 goes into decals for the truck.

Busy Mondays. Mon

Tues

Fri

2.5 Billion People. billion people, out of the 7 2food.5billion people in the world, eat coming from a food truck a day.

Photo by: Malisa Chittarat

18 The Austin Dish | May 2015

Weds

Sat

Thurs

Sun

ondays are often times the busiest day for a food M truck. Many vendors sell the most food on the start of the week.

This is the history behind the food truck, ranging back from the very start of the United States. The first food trucks used to bring food trucks to workers but later in the 18th century, it evolved into a way to distribute food to feed troops in the military. In the 21st century, the food truck industry expanded rapidly, resulting in recognition and partnerships from various corporations.

[2010]

Food trucks are required to get health department inspections like Brick and Mortar restaurants.

[2011]

Zagat Reviews makes a food truck category to help judge and review food trucks around the world.

[2014]

The National Food Truck Association was formed, being the first national food truck association.

57 Percent.

Photo by: Wikipedia Photo by: Nemo

of food trucks use more Twitter 57thanpercent Facebook

2453 : 3822

453 Twitter interactions to 3822 Facebook interactions from fans.

1352 : 812

353 Twitter interactions to 812 Facebook interactions from the food truck.

http://www.culinaryschools.com/history-of-food-trucks, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/magazine/who-made-that-food-truck.html?_r=0, http://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/ history-of-food-trucks-riffs-fine-street-food-kogi-korean-bbq-clover-food-lab

May 2015 | The Austin Dish

Photo by: WWW.ATASTEOFKOKO.COM

A Large Selection of Fresh Foods

Friendly and Helpful Employees

Come and See Us Soon!

Culture Commixture Exploring the business behind the food truck. Story by: ETHAN LIM

Photo by: BRAND HAPPY

“Umami Chicken Wings” and “Bahn Mi Tacos,” that cross the boundaries between Asian and Southern cultures. Besides providing food to the people, the “Peachers” strive to provide professional service to make their customers feel at ease. “Lots of the food is comfort food to me but kind of modernized a bit,” Silverstein said. Raised in the land of the rising sun by a Chinese mother, Silverstein has always had involvement with Asian food, even after moving to Georgia, where he got introduced to Southern food. It only seemed natural to Silverstein to combine his two comforts of exotic Japanese food and classic Southern fare. “Nothing too crazy, nothing too foreign around here but just something that is a little different that they can enjoy,” Silverstein said.

Diners can enjoy a fusion between two cultures in “Bahn Mi Tacos” where elements from Mexican and Vietnamese culture are drawn from. ric Silverstein never thought years of advertising their goods on social he was going to venture out media sites such as Instagram, Facebook of the food truck industry. and Twitter, local restaurants are For the past four-and-abeginning to expand rapidly, from being half years of his life, he and in a food truck to being a local restaurant his fellow “Peachers” drove chain. Silverstein and his “unusual but around in his food truck selling their familiar” mix of Southern and Asian food unique mixture of Southern and Asian is just one of many success stories that cuisine to local Austinites. Their food have sprouted from Austin’s ever-growing brings something familiar to the table, food truck industry. but with a slight twist to the flavor. Now, Silverstein has a restaurant worth “We still have the original menu items, three quarters of a million dollars that like tacos, our burgers, our fries and overflows with people daily. our street food items, but the rest of the items are new and ones that we have been Japanese native Eric Silverstein and testing over the past year,” Silverstein many other food truck-to-restaurant said. owners have been working on becoming entrepreneurs in Austin. After many Peached Tortilla offers dishes such as

The idea of mixing two cuisines that would not necessarily work together drives other Austin restaurants and food trucks like Peached, Torchy’s and Chi’Lantro. So far, this innovative idea has brought similar companies great success. Silverstein and Peached bring aspects of both cultures, from barbecue hailing from the South to Asian noodles and combines them to create recipes such as the “Southern Fun Dish”, which contains braised brisket, kale, bean sprouts and wide rice noodles. “I think southern food is something that people understand down here because you know, we are in the South,” SIlverstein said. “But I also think that people are also intrigued by something a little bit different.” Perhaps the success of the restaurant can be credited to the “familiarity principle”.

May 2015 | The Austin Dish

This idea in social psychology states that an individual exposed to something familiar tends to relax more. The mix of southern food and Asian food is a clever business strategy because the people that come into the restaurant or truck are Southerners. Giving them something familiar to try makes them want to eat that food, even if there is a slight alteration to the original recipe. Psychology Today’s Raj Raghunathan has developed a theory along these lines, where when exposed to similar food, people over time develop interest and a liking towards the food item. This, in turn, leads to more sales. Torchy’s, especially, uses this idea to their advantage, playing to their customer’s familiarity in tacos and enticing them with traditional recipes as well as new and innovative recipes. “We get lots of suggestions for new things and other types of food but at the end of the day we do tacos and that’s it,” owner and founder of Torchy’s Taco’s Mike Rypka said. Torchy’s Tacos has become one of the most respected food truck turned restaurant businesses due to the quality of their food and the fact that they sell tacos in Texas, a state with copious amounts of Mexican influence. The combination of both of these merit has resulted in Torchy’s Taco’s receiving two awards from the Austin Chronicle in 2014. Being a state that has been heavily influenced by Mexico and its culture, Texas has one of the highest amounts of Mexican restaurants in the United States at 17.7%. This is evidence that Mexican restaurants tend to do well in Texas, but in order to set themselves apart, Torchy’s requires something more than just tacos. Use of traditional ingredients such as bacon and eggs help build the foundation of the tacos, but the piece de résistance are unusual items, including coconut battered shrimp and items that one would not usually see in a taco. When comparing Torchy’s Tacos to other restaurants like Chi’Lantro or Peach Tortilla, all of them use innovative and often times under used ingredients, like pork belly and curries, to set their food apart from the pack.

22 The Austin Dish | May 2015

Chi’Lantro’s kimchi fries show a mix of cultures, ranging from Mexican to American to Korean.

“

I never thought that I would get out of the food truck industry.

”

-Eric Silverstein, CEO of

Photo by: KRISTY OWEN

or a billboard, as a simple eight panel billboard costs upwards of 45, 000 dollars, they result to using free methods like social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. These sites have the possibility to be better because the majority of people check social media often and have more of a chance to see their advertisement. “The majority of it was social media and word of mouth,” Silverstein said. To be honest, that’s the majority of the advertising that we have done. A lot of Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.” Sometimes, social media just doesn’t generate enough buzz about the restaurant, so companies starting out or waiting to turn a profit, rely on the quality of their food and their customers reviews to bring in more customers. This is what Jae Kim and his food truck Chi’Lantro did to gain publicity. Chi’Lantro has used their food as their form of advertising, mixing and blending different cultures together to form their signature dish, Kimchi Fries. “We didn’t have money to advertise or hire a PR firm,” Kim said. “We used social media: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and more. We continue to run our business with a very tight advertising budget.”

“We focus on our food and the menu item itself. If Korean BBQ tasted well with jalapeño sauce, we want to share it with our customers. It worked out well for us,” Jae Kim, founder and current owner of Chi’ Lantro, said. Most food trucks do not have enough money to access high end advertising because the majority of the money is spent on obtaining the licences, permits and the truck itself, according to Foodtrucker.com. And because these food trucks often times don’t have enough money to get high end advertising, such as an ad on Spotify

By taking pictures of signature dishes in Chi’Lantro such as their Kimchi Fries and posting them on sites such as Instagram, many people have come running to try Chi’Lantro’s first dish, an American classic with an Asian twist. Other methods have worked very well in the past for other trucks. Torchy’s first started with giving out free samples of their award winning salsa to attract sales. If Torchy’s presented a strange menu item, that form of advertising might not have worked out for them. But, because Rypka used salsa, which Austinites are familiar with, the free food advertisement brought success and many customers.

“[We used] word of mouth [and] handed out free chips and salsa,” Rypka said. After setting up several restaurants, Torchy’s discovered that organic food does increase public perception or awareness, however most people do not feel that it is needed for quality food, despite being higher quality than nonorganic components. “We have some organic items where it’s feasible and economical to use them. We did a survey three years ago as to whether people wanted organic food and the overwhelming response was no it wasn’t that important. We have very fresh and quality ingredients they just don’t have the organic stamp,” Rypka said. Having good quality food is essential for any food truck or restaurant, but distribution of the food can be a challenge. Previous food truck owner, Jill Stolt, who has now dropped out of the business states that “It was very difficult to get folks, especially in the smaller towns, to come up to the trucks”. While bad restaurant placement can mean a lack of customers, Kim has chosen places like work sites to station his trucks, reducing the impact of bad placement through sheer numbers of customers. “The benefit of a food truck is that we are mobile,” Kim said. “We can drive to our customers anytime, anywhere, and move on to the next location,” Food truck are quickly becoming one of the best ways to start a restaurant. Food trucks remain relatively cheap, ranging from $50,000 to $200,000, making them prime candidates for upcoming restaurants. The benefits of the food truck outweigh the detriments by far because the people running the truck are able to cook food with similar quality to a restaurant’s, and more quickly distribute food to the consumers. “I never thought that I would get out of the food truck industry. It’s a

May 2015 | The Austin Dish

challengejust to get out of the food truck and move to a restaurant,” Silverstein said.

Photo by: KRISTY OWEN

The one downside to the food truck business is that it is very hard to leave or exit the food truck business according to Silverstein’s blog. When transferring from a food truck to a brick and mortar restaurant, interaction with vendors goes from three to upwards of 10. Which in turn, leads to more money being spent. For restaurants that have come from a food truck, such as Peached Tortilla, the transfer between the two establishments is very hard as most restaurants cost upwards of $750, 000 just to buy. Gaining all of this money is very hard to do as the food trucks still have to pay upkeep for the truck, pay for ingredients, pay the workers and pay for access to venues. “Food Trucks are a great advertising platform. In five years, we were able to reach out to a lot of Austinite’s by visiting their offices and parties,” Kim said. Food trucks being mobile restaurants have the ability to drive around their city, gaining access to new demographics that they would never normally try to appeal to, essentially becoming great testing grounds for new innovative ideas like Peached Tortilla’s contemporary Asian pear bites or their Hawaiian pork belly. Taking a food truck to a new location with new demographics is a great way of testing out what people want and how receptive people are to new things by giving them a new menu item that the public has not seen yet. “I would also love to grow our catering business as it makes up the majority, 5560 percent, of our business,” Silverstein said. Catering and food trucks are synonymous which allows people to see why Peached Tortilla has been such a success. When you cater to a group, you have the ability to bring your already existing food truck as a method of

24 The Austin Dish | May 2015

This Chi’Lantro food truck is restocking ingredients for its next stop. transportation of food, or to use as a place to cook for the consumers. Offering a catering service while having a food truck is a possible way to supplement or make a bit more money for the business on the side. Most restaurants who have an one thousand dollar catering service cost often have a 45% profit margin, where 29% of the money goes into food costs, 17% goes into labour costs and 9% of the money is into miscellaneous things like renting a commercial kitchen. “Right now we are at an interesting point in our growth, as we are 4 and a half years old and just opened a new restaurant,” Silverstein said. The act of buying a restaurant is one of the biggest steps in becoming a restaurant and not just a food truck, according to Silverstein’s blog. The physical site is bigger, meaning that there is more economic pressure for the restaurant to do well, the cost is more than two times of a food truck, on average starting from $500, 000, and there is a need for more staffing. The good that comes from a

stationary restaurant is that instead of the consumer struggling to find where the truck is going to be next, they have a finite place that they can go to in order to receive the food that they want. Peached Tortilla has used this to their advantage and over the course of their soft opening week, there have been lines stretching out of the main building into their parking lot. “The core value of how we run both businesses are the same,” Kim said. All of the local Austin restaurants and food trucks strive to have both the trucks and physical restaurants share a similar feeling. At Chi’Lantro and Peached, they use lighter and more natural colors and woods, while Torchy’s uses darker colors and lots of metals to set the feeling of the restaurants. These differing atmospheres in these restaurants are provided by people hired by Kim, Rypka and Silverstein who concentrate on pleasing the customer and providing consistent food quality, bringing back the subscribers and drawing in new

customers. “We were on Live with Kelly and Michael, the Kelly and Michael show. I mean, it does have an effect, people do come in as a result of [it],” Silverstein said.

“

importantly, partnerships with big, name brand companies gives a company more recognition . “We are always looking for the right partners.” Kim said.“SXSW is a big one. We’ve worked with Coca Cola, Beats by

have apps, frequent advertisements or live events at venues which always helps out the smaller company because it attracts attention to them. My personal experience with this has been with a partnership between AT&T and Chi’Lantro where AT&T handed out free

We’ve worked with Coco Cola, Beats by Dre., Roikoi, General Electric, Spotify, and more.”

”

-Jae Kim, Owner of Chi’Lantro

Many people believe that if a restaurant, in this case Peached Tortilla, is on TV, the place is worth trying, however, this did not produce masses of people who are vying to get into the restaurant. More

Dre., Roikoi, General Electric, Spotify, and more.” Working with big name companies is another way for advertising or PR. The majority of the big name corporations

food vouchers for Chi’Lantro when you signed up for a newsletter provided by AT&T. “For the food trucks, [the consumer Photo by: KRISTY OWEN

One of Torchy’s Taco’s food trucks resting in a trailer park. Notice the reds, oranges, flames and the darker colors that go with the Torchy’s aesthetic.

May 2015 | The Austin Dish 25

base] has been young professionals, 18-45 age, people interested in ACL, SXSW, tech, music, arts and foodies. But we’ve been seeing a lot of families with kids, and older couple in addition to our current customer base, which is really awesome,” Kim said. For a food truck or a food truckrestaurant combination, knowing the demographics that the business is looking to apply towards is very important. Across the board, Torchy’s, Chi’ Lantro and Peached are all looking to appeal to younger consumers, with their respective owners specifying the primary demographic range being 18-45 years of age, specifically those who deemed themselves “hipsters”. However, establishments like Peached are surprisingly straying away from college students. The fact that college

students are very cheap and can’t drink booze makes them have very little value in terms of profit. If Peached moved assets to try to appeal to college students, they would be wasting their hard earned money on something with very little return value, stressing the importance of knowing the demographics that the business wants to appeal towards. “My personal approach to this is to decide whether or not I want to grow this business and become a real entrepreneur or do I want to be content with what I have. I want to grow Peached. It’s just that I need to figure out what direction to grow it in,” Silverstein said.

thinks that there other cities and states can provide better sales and reception. For example, New York could prove to be very hospitable for Peached and their food truck industry, as the majority of people in New York are young businessmen and women, looking for a fast high quality meal. Peached would have to change their cuisine that sets them apart in order to gain sales in a new market and essentially start over again from scratch. Staying in Austin and expanding to a new area offers a very solid source of income for the staff as well as Silverstein himself, however, as of now, Silverstein is saving up and making plans for a branch down South.

Reaching the four-and-a-half year mark, Peached is starting to do very well in Austin, beginning to pick up in both sales and popularity, but the founder

“I would like to build a restaurant in South Austin,” Silverstein said. “I’m gonna grow that a bit more, and then move onto a new restaurant.” Photo by: KRISTY OWEN

This is Silverstein’s first resturant located at 5520 Burnet Road, Austin, Texas 78756.

26 The Austin Dish | May 2015

WONDERFUL

PISTACHIO! Roasted & Salted

Buy your roasted pistachios now at Costco! On sale for $9.99!

Photo by: WIKIPEDIA

The ULTIMATE By: EVA LEGGE

The following is a comprehensive guide so some of Austin’s most popular (and not-so popular chocolate chip cookies. I chose a wide variety of locations, spanning to the highest rated bakeries on yelp to some less known cookies baked at restaurants, and sampled a chocolate chip cookie from each location. Possessing sweet tooth since birth and being an experienced cookie connoisseur, the following is my opinion on just a few of Austin’s extensive selection of chocolate chip cookies.

HIGH CHIP CONCENTRATION

Épecerie 2307 Hancock Dr

Steeping Room 4400

N Lamar Blvd

CHEWY

Upper Crust

Food heads

4508 Burnet Rd

616 W 34th St

The Ultimate Cookie Matrix

CRUNCHY

Pacha 4618 Burnet Rd

Russells La Patisserie

602 W Annie St

3339 Hancock Dr

Wheatsville 3101 Guadalupe St

LOW CHIP CONCENTRATION

28 The Austin Dish | May 2015

Austin Cookie Guide Foodheads

La Patisserie

A thin, large, delicious cookie; chewy and crunchy

A bland, uninteresting cookie; thick and cakey Salt Level:

Salt Level:

Size:

Price:

Photo By: EVA LEGGE

Russells Bakery

A rich and overly sweet cookie, thin, crisp, and doughy Salt Level:

Épecerie

A mound-shaped cookie with too many chips Salt Level:

Size:

Price:

Price: Photo By: DEB LEWIS

Photo By: DEB LEWIS

Steeping Room

Rich, dark chocolate chunk cookie with melted toffee

Upper Crust

A more baked cookie with nuts and dark chocolate

Salt Level:

Size:

Price:

Price: Photo By: DEB LEWIS

Photo By: EVA LEGGE

Pacha

Wheatsville

A crunchy, dense cookie with small chips

The crunchiest cookie; very sweet and plain Salt Level:

Salt Level:

Size:

Price:

Photo By: EVA LEGGE

Key:

Photo By: DEB LEWIS

Size:

Salt Level:

Too

Lit tle

Per fec t

Too

Mu ch

1’’

Price: 5’’

10’’

$0.

$4.

May 2015 | The Austin Dish

Deep in the Heart The history of one of Austin’s oldest bakeries Story by: ANNA POTEREK

Photo by: ANNA POTEREK

When Tom Neuhaus first tried baking, he set his mother’s kitchen on fire. But 20 years and formal culinary training later, he established one of Austin’s classic bakeries, Sweetish Hill. Texas Monthly would name it “Best Bakery in the State” and it would inspire the founding of Captain Quackenbush’s and Upper Crust Bakeries before becoming the integral part of local culture that it is today. The Sweetish Hill concept was born in Vienna of friends Patricia Bauer-Slate and Tom Neuhaus. It became reality in Austin, Texas on March 5, 1975. The European bakery was unique among a lack of culinary diversity and prevailed against the struggles of establishing a business. It has both changed and been changed by Austin over the years, and has had supporters since the beginning. “In 1972, my girlfriend and I were going to Vienna, [and] I had a job in a bakery,” Dr. Tom Neuhaus said. “I met Patricia [Bauer-Slate] when we stayed about three weeks together, when we were living in their apartment. We did a bunch of fun things together. We started to decide that, well, I’d never met her before, but we decided to start a business together.” But the business didn’t develop immediately. Neuhaus still had a semester left at Oberlin College and had a job lined up for him at a prestigious New York restaurant. But after finishing college, he chose Sweetish Hill instead. “I just thought, ‘Well, this is a great opportunity.’ So I moved down to Texas and got there in September of 1974,” Neuhaus said. After moving to Austin, Neuhaus and Bauer-Slate bought an old Victorian

30 The Austin Dish | May 2015

While many businesses struggle with establishment, this wasn’t the case for Sweetish Hill.“[The health department agent] came and he complained about what we were doing,” Neuhaus said. “I gave him a palmier and he was our friend from then on.”

house at 1406 Waller St., which became the first Sweetish Hill. The bakery opened on March 5, 1975. It served palmiers and croissants, along with other delicacies commonly recognized as French. But Neuhaus argues the inspiration lies elsewhere. “The bakery was really as much emphasis on Vienna as it is was French,” Neuhaus said. “So, for example, the baguette, which we call French bread, is not French at all, it’s Austrian. It was invented by the Austrians. And then the croissant’s not French at all, it’s Austrian. It was invented by a Pole living in Austria.” The baguettes were in culture shock among the chicken fried steak and biscuits with gravy that dominated local menus. The Franco-Austrian-Austrian influence (so named by Neuhaus because of the bakery’s strong Austrian influence) contrasted with the rest of central Texas’s character, which Neuhaus simply said was boring. But while the bakery was unique, it was well- received by its

customers. “We were riding a wave. There was this wave of Americans after the second world war having traveled overseas wanting to get some of the cultural experiences they’d gotten in Europe and not finding them because there wasn’t a whole lot available,” Neuhaus said. The bakery was originally a novelty, but it began to integrate into Austin culture until it was an indispensable part. “It’s like a painting,” Neuhaus said. “ Say there’s an interest in a painting that has dots of blues and reds and yellows and blacks and all these different colors, and [Sweetish Hill] was one of the colors. It’s part of the fabric, the cultural fabric.” Although Sweetish Hill became successful, it still faced obstacles, many of them financial. Sweetish Hill was a new small business, and there were bills to pay.

Making the bakery succeed was hard work, and it took everything Neuhaus and Bauer-Slate had to keep it alive. “Money’s always the biggest problem. I went to the gas company, and I literally got down on my knees and begged them to turn the gas back on... And they did it,” Neuhaus said. “I slept on the flour bags and just worked my ass off. And basically, it got us out. There were lots of tough times. But it was a lot of fun.” Neuhaus and Bauer-Slate gave everything to the bakery, and the bakery gave back. “I made this gingerbread house model, and I made caramel windows and I put lights in all the windows with Christmas tree lights,” Neuhaus said. “[Bauer-Slate] took it over to the children’s ward, and it got on the news. That was $40,000 of advertising for free. That was one of my

“

That was one of my greater lessons in lifegenerosity is its own reward.

”

greater lessons in lifegenerosity is its own reward. So I’ve always credited Patricia for the brilliant idea of thinking outside the box and donating it. That was one of my epiphanies in life.” In two years, Bauer-Slate and Neuhaus closed the bakery on Waller Street and

-Tom Neuhaus

started a new bakery on West Sixth and Blanco Streets. In 1978, the new Sweetish Hill was named the “Best Bakery in the State.” That same year, Neuhaus moved away to study nutrition and the politics of food, which he now teaches at California Polytechnic University. Jim Photo by: ANNA POTEREK

Sweetish Hill’s gingerbread cookies, made with fresh ginger and molasses, were started by Neuhaus.“I actually would drive to a feed store and buy molasses that they feed the cattle rather than using the jarred molasses,” Neuhaus said. “Why should I pay an extraordinary mark-up when I can buy a five gallon bucket that they feed the cattle and get the same flavor?”

May 2015 | The Austin Dish

Photo by: ANNA POTEREK

Sweetish Hill’s Sixth Street neighborhood, Clarksville, is represented in the bakery, Boles said. “It’s very much a neighborhood bakery, and a lot of our customers are regulars,” Boles said. “We cater to that.”

Murphy became Bauer-Slate’s partner at Sweetish Hill in 1990, bringing his own influences and technique with him. While the bakery has changed, its essence certainly hasn’t. “I think we’re still very much part of an Austin institution. We’re not corporate in any way, it’s still very locally owned. Our recipes haven’t changed, we’ve really stayed true to the ingredients and what the bread should be,” Jacob Boles, an employee at Sweetish Hill, said. Boles has worked at the bakery for four years. Sweetish Hill’s customers seem to appreciate its consistency. Many of them have known about the bakery and have been going there for years. Some people go nearly every day. Although the bakery appeals to people in different ways, the bakery’s constancy over the decades has charmed nearly everyone. “I went to the one on Congress, that was

32 The Austin Dish | May 2015

“

Our recipes haven’t changed, we’ve really stayed true to the ingredients and what the bread should be.

”

-Jacob Boles

in 2000, so that was fifteen years ago. And the chocolate cake today is still as good as it was then,” Ellen Read, a morning customer, said.

Read, along with her coffee companion Connie Swearingen, are frequent customers at Sweetish Hill. Both are oldtime Austinites and have been coming to the bakery for years. “Well, it’s an old-time establishment, it’s been here for years and years. And I used to come here I think, when I was in college. But it wasn’t in this exact location,” Swearingen said. Over the years, Sweetish Hill has become important to both Austin’s culture and the people living there. But like anything else, it is significant in different ways for different people. For Swearingen and Read, it represents friendship. “So she lives south and I live north, so we

Photo by: ANNA POTEREK

scratch, even our mayonnaise. It goes that far down, we make everything from scratch. We don’t have a lot of things in here that we don’t make,” Boles said. “And if it is something like our coffee, we’ll use another company that is local and is also doing that same thing.” But even this, like the rest of the bakery, has history. The locavore movement seems current, but according to Neuhaus, it’s not. “All these people are talking about local. And that’s all the generation, my generation that got into local. And I believed in local,” Neuhaus said. “ So I was buying vegetables from a local farmer, he would deliver them to me. And I bought local molasses.”

Like the gingerbread, Neuhaus also invented the Deep in the Heart of Texas cookie, which is a shortbread Texas cookie with a little red shortbread heart in the middle, Neuhaus said.

meet at Sweetish Hill and we have a cup of coffee and we ride,” Read said. But for Boles, Sweetish Hill is a symbol of what Austin should be. “I think it’s important for Austin culture to have small businesses and laid back atmospheres,” Boles said. “[Interactions between workers and customers are] genuine and sincere, and that’s what I like about Austin.” The bakery has become embedded in the city’s culture so it reflects many essential parts of the city, like its locavore movement. People have begun to eat locally grown and produced food, instead of packaged food that has traveled long distances, Neuhaus said. Neuhaus and Bauer-Slate started Sweetish Hill’s use of locally produced food, a legacy that continues to the present. The bakery is currently both a consumer and producer in locavore, Boles said. “Everything we make we make from

While Sweetish Hill is established, it still struggles with some of the same problems it did 40 years ago.

“

hard for small businesses in Austin “It’s right now because the price of real estate has gone up and that affects Everything small businesses,” Boles said. “We have competition with Whole Foods, that’s right up the street. But I think we’re still we make doing all right. We’re still hanging in there, as far as that goes.” we make Sweetish Hill is defined by its present, from scratch, including the people who go there and the food it serves, and also by its past, even our including the people who started it and the work put in to make it prosper. The bakery’s past and present together make mayonnaise the bakery what it is. ...We don’t “As much as sometimes I’d like [Sweetish Hill] to follow some trends, I feel like we have a lot of always stay to our tried and true things we make,” Boles said. “And they’re things in here that good, they’re European favorites as far as the pastries go. The original owners, that we don’t they traveled the world and they knew what they wanted to put into the menu. that’s kind of what we offer, these make. And things from around the world that are -Jacob Boles just good.”

”

May 2015 | The Austin Dish

Daniel Top Ten Chefs in America By: Bonnecaze

The Creators of the food and restaurants that we love.

A chef is a person that imagines that creates dishes from ingredients that we thought only had a single purpose, they make things that taste delicious, and innovate. A chef is known for the amount of recognition they get. Photo by: pursuitist.com

1. Thomas Keller

Thomas Keller is a chef that specializes in French cuisine who owns two 3 Michelin Star winning restaurants, The French Laundry and Per Se and several James Beard awards. Thomas Keller started his career, as a dishwasher for a yacht club during his teenage years, he would eventually get promoted to chef. He discovered his passion for cooking when he was making a hollandaise sauce. Photo by: gayot.com

2. Eric Ripert

Eric Ripert is a French chef specializing in French and Spanish cuisine. His restaurant in New York City, Le Bernardin, has won three Michelin Stars and several James Beard awards. Ripert started his culinary career when he was 17, working at a restaurant in Paris called La Tour d’Argent, which is over 400 years old. His first time in the USA, was as a sous chef for a restaurant in the Watergate Hotel. Photo by: foodbanknyc.org

3. Mario Batali

Mario Batali is a chef that specializes in Italian cuisine, his restaurant Babbo Ristorante has won a Michelin Star. Batali as well, is also a famous television personality, and has won several James Beard awards. Batali’s professional career started when he became the head chef for Four Seasons Hotel Baltimore, which then he would eventually work at an Italian restaurant, until he would open his restaurant, Po. Photo by: coopercarrasphoto.com

4. Gary Danko

Gary Danko is a chef that specializes in French, Mediterranean, and American cuisine. He owns a restaurant called Gary Danko, which has one Michelin Star, and he’s won several James Beard Awards. Danko first started cooking when he cooked at his local Village Inn, where he cooked at every position at some point. He would first become executive chef, at the restaurant, Beringer Vineyards. Photo by: sagharboronline.com

5. Tom Colicchio

Tom Colicchio is a chef who cooks a lot of things, he owns several restaurants that are part of a chain of his original Craft restaurant, he has received five James Beard awards and his a judge on the popular cooking show, Top Chef. He started his culinary career when him and a partner, Danny Meyer, opened the Gramercy Tavern, after the success and good reviews, he would open his first CraftSteak restaurant in Las Vegas.

34 The Austin Dish| May 2015

Photo by: insidescoopsf.sfgate.com

6. Alice Waters

Alice Waters is a chef who pioneered the “California cuisine” with her restaurant, Chez Panisse, she has also won two James Beard awards. She helped pioneer the California cuisine when she went to France and used fresh produce to cook her meals, and she would bring that mentality to California. Alice Waters was also a part of the Free Speech Movement when she was attending Berkeley. Photo by: ahalife.com

7. Daniel Boulud

Daniel Boulud is a French chef, who specializes in French cuisine, with his New York City-based, two Michelin Star winning restaurant, Daniel. He is also the recipient of many James Beard awards. Boulud first got recognition as a chef when he was 15, as a finalist during France’s Best Culinary Apprentice competition. He would eventually become the private chef for the European Commission in D.C. Photo by: yelp.com

8. Alfred Portale

Alfred Portale is a chef who specializes in “New American Cuisine”, with his restaurant Gotham Bar and Grill, which has one Michelin Star. Portale has received two James Beard awards. Portale had a normal culinary career, but he would be a mentor to many other famous chefs, like Tom Valenti, Bill Telepan, Wylie Dufresne, Christopher Lee, Jason Hall, and Tom Colicchio. He is known for never wanting to open another restaurant. Photo by: fastcompany.com

9. Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain is a chef, who specializes in French cuisine, with his restaurant, Brasserie Las Halles, and he is also a very successful TV personality, with many TV shows. Bourdain’s love for food started in France when he tasted an oyster. He first started to pursue his cooking career when he was working at seafood restaurants in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Photo by: foodnetwork.com

10. Geoffrey Zakarian

Geoffrey Zakarian is a chef that cooks a lot of things, and owns many restaurants in NYC, Atlanta, and Miami. He is also a TV personality, being a judge in the show, Chopped. Zakarian started his career getting a degree at the Culinary Institute of America. He began his professional career as an apprentice chef under Daniel Boulud. He would later on become the executive chef 44, where he got impressive reviews.

Information Gathered From: https://www.bestchefsamerica.com/, http://www.therichest.com/expensive-lifestyle/food/the-top-10-chefs-in-the-united-states/ https://www.wikipedia.org/

May 2015 | The Austin Dish

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Amy’s Ice Creams Austin, TX

Locations at: The Arboretum at Great Hills, Bee Caves Rd, S. Lamar Blvd