Austin Chef Opens Southern Comfort Food-Focused Restaurant in Bastrop

Austin chef Sonya Cote opened her new Bastrop restaurant, Store House Market + Eatery, at 813 Main Street, as of late December. The restaurant is open with indoor and outdoor dine-in service, as well as takeout orders and in-person market pickups.

The downtown Bastrop restaurant focuses, naturally, on local sourcing, with many items from Cote’s new nearby farm Eden East as well as other area producers and farmers. This Southern comfort food menu includes dishes such as chicken fried quail knots, butternut queso, barbecue shrimp, and barbecued vegetables.

Cote is the chef/owner behind Eden West, previously known as Eden East before she moved the lauded seasonal-focused trailer from East Austin and set up shop in the parking lot of Driftwood sotol distillery and tasting room Desert Door in August 2020. She and her husband/partner David Barrow also relocated Eden East’s host site, the former-Springdale Farm/now-Eden East Farm, into Bastrop over the summer. They had to move the farm site (which opened in 2009 by founders Glenn and Paula Foore; Cote and Barrow took over in 2018) because it is being turned into a mixed-use development. Cote also runs Central East Austin New American restaurant Hillside Farmacy.

As for drinks, Cote tapped booze expert Brian Floyd as the restaurant’s beverage director. Floyd previously worked as the opening beverage director for the Line Austin and now-closed cocktail bar Weather Up. This means cocktails, wine, and local beers in the near future, but until then, guests can bring their own drinks.

Store House’s dining room features the original loblolly pine wood tables from Eden East — created from wood saved from the Lost Pines wildfires in 2011. Lining the walls are artworks by local resident and film director Richard Linklater (yes, the person behind Dazed and Confused and Boyhood), including some mosaic pieces. The two-story portion features the restaurant; the one-story building houses the market. The building is nearly 175-years-old; the list of previous tenants included a brothel, funeral home, and cafe/marketplace).

Texas Monthly executive editor and food writer Pat Sharpe told Eater that Store House was her most anticipated restaurant of 2021. The restaurant hours are from 5 to 10 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday.

• Store House Market + Eatery [Official]
• Store House Market + Eatery [Facebook]
• Store House Market + Eatery [Instagram]