Beloved Bakery Texas French Bread Announces Plans to Return With Outdoor Dining and Food Truck

The owners of Texas French Bread, the longtime Austin bakery that was destroyed in a fire in January, announced plans to resume limited operations. However, its former home at 2900 Rio Grande Street remains in limbo though the bakery has bought the land next door to the space.

The bakery has leased a space at Prep ATX, a commercial kitchen space in Northeast Austin, to resume wholesale operations, with plans to return to farmer’s markets and Farmhouse Delivery by the week of July 11. It’s not clear which farmers markets Texas French Bread will be a part of (it had previously been at Lakeline and Mueller), but expect a limited menu of pastries, cookies, and breads.

Additionally, Texas French Bread recently purchased the next-door garden, 2904 Rio Grande, and plans to put a food truck in for outdoor dining. Texas French Bread had previously rented this space but lost access to it in 2021. Owner Murph Wilcott said in an email announcement that the team will spend the summer cleaning up the space and he hopes to open the food truck and outdoor dining area in the fall.

The building at 2900 Rio Grande, which fire crews declared a total loss after the fire on January 24, is still being evaluated by structural engineers to determine if it can be salvaged. A GoFundMe for the restaurant raised almost $200,000, which went to severance pay and insurance for employees according to the Austin 360 article.

Texas French Bread opened in 1981 as a wholesale bread business. Founder Judy Wilcott (Murph’s mother) moved into the Rio Grande location in 1986.

Update, Friday, June 17, 12:29 p.m.: This article, originally published on June 2, has been updated with information about outdoor dining at Texas French Bread.