Favorite Bakery and Beer Garden Easy Tiger Is Opening on South Lamar

Easy Tiger, the adored bakery and beer garden, is opening its second standalone Austin location on South Lamar this month. It’s taking over what had been Red Porch’s last location on 3508 South Lamar Boulevard in the Barton Hills neighborhood starting on Friday, October 16, for patio dine-in, curbside, and delivery services.

The 15,000-square-foot patio and the multi-story building will house the bakery, beer garden and park, with social distanced seating. To come will be the deck space, which will be available for private events. There had been plans for a classroom space with workshops and educational events and a market section. The address overlooks the Greenbelt and Barton Creek. The redesign was overseen by Michael Hsu Office of Architecture.

To prepare for the opening of the South Austin location, Easy Tiger closed its original restaurant in downtown Austin this year, which had opened in 2012. The company expanded with a location in the Whole Foods Cedar Park in 2017 (which also closed this year) and the still-open one at the Linc in 2018. It had operated a stand in downtown food hall Fareground in 2018, but that closed in 2019, a year after it had split from founding parent company ELM Group. Last fall, Easy Tiger’s head baker David Norman published a long-awaited bread book, Bread on the Table.

The future holds probably many more locations of Easy Tiger. The growth is now under the guidance of new chief executive officer with Mike Stitt. Previously, he was the CEO of Invisible Ink Tattoo Removers, which operates locations across the country, and the president of travel deal website Travelzoo’s North American division. Also involved in Easy Tiger are a bunch of investment firms: Pixiu Investments (run by Eddie Margain and Chris Loughlin) and Prophet Capital Asset Management (run by Bobby Epstein).

After ten years, comfort food patio mini-chain Red’s Porch closed the South Lamar location in October 2019. It had been the last remaining location of Red’s since both the North Austin and Round Rock locations closed in 2017 and 2018, respectively. Owner Davis Tucker also closed both locations of his brewery and restaurant North by Northwest Co.

Easy Tiger’s South Lamar hours are from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m Sunday through Thursday, and then from 7 a.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday.

• All Coverage of Easy Tiger [EATX]