Plano-Based Chain Restaurant Whiskey Cake Kitchen & Bar Opens in Round Rock

Plano-based restaurant heavily-in-Texas chain Whiskey Cake Kitchen & Bar is opening its first Austin-area location this week. The new restaurant will be in Round Rock at 2600 North I-35 starting on Tuesday, September 13. The Texas-American menu is served for lunch, dinner, and weekend brunch, with dishes like goat cheese fondue, candied bacon, chicken tenders and malted waffles, burgers, croque-madames, carrot cake pancakes, and the namesake whiskey cake, a stick toffee cake with a bourbon crème anglaise, spiced pecans, and whipped cream. A garden will provide garnishes for cocktails and a whole whiskey collection.

For its first day of service, the restaurant will donate half of its proceeds to the nonprofit the Dog Alliance. There’s also an on-site retail market with producers from neighbors. Its hours will be from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday.

Country singer stops by Austin honky-tonk

Country star Kacey Musgraves and boyfriend Cole Schafer stopped by South Austin honky-tonk Broken Spoke to catch a show by Texas musician Dale Watson on Sunday, September 11. She’s known to frequent Austin music venues, like when she filmed the music video for “Are You Sure” at the White Horse in 2015. She’s performing at Austin City Music Festival again this year in October.

Austin restaurant nonprofit urges service workers to vote

Local small business nonprofit Good Work Austin is embarking on a campaign to encourage service workers to register to vote and actually vote in the forthcoming election. ATX Service Industry Votes includes voter registration information, voting deadlines, voting locations, and forthcoming voter guides.

East Austin restaurant/bar slight switcheroo

The fifth time’s the charm: taking over the Buzz Mill East Side space on 1209 East Seventh Street is the bar’s vegan restaurant Plow Burger as of September 5. The space will serve Plow Burger food, but still serve Buzz Mill’s drinks and coffee menus. And the on-site vegan brunch restaurant Brunch Bird is shifting into weekends-only hours from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Plow Burger’s hours are from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. Before Buzz Mill opened in September 2021, the address had been bar/burrito restaurant Troublemaker, New American restaurant Hightower, and Ethiopian restaurant Karibu.

Tracking Austin-area restaurant events

Johnson City wine producer Lightsome is celebrating its 2021 bottle with a party at East Austin wine bar LoLo. The vintage is a Hill Country-grown mourvedre. The party starts at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, September 14, and there’s a DJ.

The next wine dinner at Nixta Taqueria’s wine club Xolovino is with online masa shop Masienda’s founder Jorge Gaviria with his cookbook Masa: Techniques, Recipes, and Reflections on a Timeless Staple. The dinner includes a four-course meal, accompanying wines, and a welcome cocktail. Tickets are $100. The dinner takes place on Sunday, September 18 starting at 6 p.m.

Barbecue truck Distant Relatives is hosting Jamaica truck Mama A’s for a pop-up later this month. The Island Grill event will include Jamaican-Southern-ish dishes. Tickets are $30, and it takes place on Tuesday, September 20 from 5 to 8 p.m. at Meanwhile Brewing.