Tapped out
Austin beer garden and bakery announces last call for original downtown location
Easy Tiger Bake Shop & Beer Garden is shutting down the downtown location where the concept launched in 2011.
“This is a bittersweet moment,” Easy Tiger said in a statement issued September 18. “Sixth Street is our home, where we baked our first loaves of bread and poured our first craft beers. So much good has come from that scrappy little bakery, and there’s still so much more to come.”
What’s coming later this year is a new Easy Tiger location in South Austin that’ll occupy the former Red’s Porch on South Lamar Boulevard. The Red’s Porch location at 3508 S. Lamar Blvd. closed last year. Easy Tiger’s location at The Linc in North Austin remains open. Also, its mobile bread truck is still making stops throughout Austin and its bread and baked goods are available at local stores like H-E-B, Randalls, and Whole Foods Market.
An opening date for the South Lamar site hasn’t been set.
The Sixth Street location closed temporarily back in March after the pandemic hit and never reopened. On September 18, Easy Tiger made the closure permanent.
Although Easy Tiger is saying goodbye to its spot at 709 E. Sixth St., the bread, beer, and dining concept vows to return to downtown Austin at some point. But the company isn’t sure when that’ll happen.
“Our little bakery on Sixth Street gave us our start and made us who we are. It’ll always have a special place in our hearts,” says David Norman, head “doughpuncher” at Easy Tiger. “It’s been a challenging year, but we’ve grown so much stronger because of it. There’s so much in store for us, and we are grateful for the support of the Austin community.”
In the response to the pandemic, Easy Tiger started curbside and delivery service, launched an e-commerce operation to ship breads around the country.
In the statement, Easy Tiger says it was a “heart-wrenching decision” to shutter its birthplace.
“We, like the rest of Sixth Street, were struggling ... COVID-19 hit that area and us especially hard,” Easy Tiger’s statement says. “We had an opportunity to amicably rework the lease with our landlord, and we took it.”
