WE’RE NOT PULLING YOUR LEG
Popular Cajun chef flies into East Austin with new fried chicken truck

The chef and owner of an Austin food truck known for serving up “damn good Cajun” fare is really getting a leg up with her new offering: a fried chicken food-truck concept called Tender Thighs.
Louisiana-born chef Lynzy Moran, culinary creative and owner of drool-inducing Cajun trailer Baton Creole, has opened her gold-glittered Tender Thighs food truck on the back patio of Shangri-La, the East Sixth Street bar that was long home to Baton Creole, which relocated to SoCo, in front of venue The Sagebrush at 5500 S. Congress Ave.
Moran will also open a second Tender Thighs spot (They come in pairs, right?) at High Noon on East Cesar Chavez Street, but there’s no word yet on an opening date just yet.
While many other Austin eateries have flown the coop, unable to sustain business during the pandemic, Moran has continued to expand her food-truck queendom and increase her staff. The launch of Tender Thighs was driven, in part, by the success of Baton Creole’s Fried Chicken Tuesdays, which featured Moran’s boneless tenders — made not from chicken breasts but thighs. So, she became devoted to the bird, focusing on three key principles for Tender Thighs: “Keep it simple, make it sexy, serve fried chicken.”
In addition to Moran’s signature fried chicken tenders, a highlight of the Tender Thighs menu is the Between the Buns sandwich — as playfully decadent as its name implies, with a stack of tenders topped with pimento cheese and chimichurri and served on a brioche bun.
Moran is also serving up twists on some of her favorite noshables, like sweet-and-salty hand-cut fries, house-made pimento cheese, and a variety of dipping sauces. And never leaving out the vegetarians and vegans among us, Moran will offer a Tempting Tempeh, a plant-based fried chicken substitute, on the menu at Tender Thighs.
Tender Thighs at Shangri-La is open Monday through Sunday from 3 pm to 2 am. Hours for the Tender Thighs location at High Noon will be announced once that location is up and running.