Texas French Bread Returns With a New Garden Bakery

After Texas French Bread was destroyed in a fire in January, the bakery and restaurant reopened with a new outdoor garden space today next door to its original address in the Heritage neighborhood. The 2900 Rio Grande Street alfresco cafe opened today, November 16.

The outdoor space includes an airstream trailer serving up coffee and tea. There’s a table for baked goods, and the restaurant plans on selling sack lunches. There are communal picnic tables for seating purposes, plus an awning for shade.

Texas French Bread’s building caught on fire because of a mechanical failure, according to the Austin Fire Department, on January 24. No one was hurt, and the building was ruined, with $1.1 million in structural damages and $500,000 in content damages.

Six months later, co-owners Murph Wilcott and Carissa Ries made plans to resume Texas French Bread’s bakery operations at Texas-area farmers markets through shared commercial kitchen hub Prep ATX, which began in August. Concurrently, he was working on building out the garden space for outdoor services.

And, at the same time, Wilcott and Ries put out requests for development proposals for the Rio Grande Space. The two are looking for a multi-story development that would incorporate Texas French Bread as a ground-floor tenant. Wilcott’s mother Judy founded Texas French Bread in 1981.

The outdoor Texas French Bread’s hours are from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, with food from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.