ROLLING IN DOUGH

Gourmet doughnut chain bakes up first Austin shop in sweet location

The Salty Donut, group of hands holding doughnuts

The Miami-based chain is opening its first Austin location early next year.

Photo courtesy of The Salty Donut

We bet dollars to doughnuts Austinites are excited about a new small-batch craft margarita coming to the Capital City — especially if that margarita comes in the form of a sweet treat.

The Salty, a wildly popular artisan doughnut shop based in Miami, is opening soon in South Austin, marking the family-owned bakery’s fifth location. And in honor of its Austin expansion, The Salty is rising to the occasion, adding a new margarita doughnut to its menu: a brioche dough filled with lime curd and tequila-infused orange glaze, and topped with torched merengue, margarita “salt,” and a dehydrated lime chip.

Though The Salty’s brick-and-mortar shop at 2000 S. Congress Ave. (across from Magnolia Cafe) won’t open until 2021, the holidays are coming early for local doughnut fiends, as The Salty will host a pop-up shop December 12 and 13 in front of its new Austin location. And the icing on the, er, doughnut: The new margarita pastry will be included in the complimentary boxes of doughnuts The Salty is dishing out to pop-up visitors who pre-registered for the event, alongside its traditional glazed, cookies-and-cream, and horchata doughnuts.

Owners Andy Rodriguez and Amanda Pizarro-Rodriguez launched the doughnut concept from a small trailer in Miami five years ago, eventually expanding to three brick-and-mortar locations in Florida and one in Dallas' Bishop Arts District that opened earlier this summer.

Buttering customers up with its fluffy brioche dough is key to The Salty’s success, as is the bakery’s menu, which features a variety of always-available standards (the brown-butter-and-salt doughnut, the guava-and-cheese doughnut, and the maple-and-bacon doughnut), as well as seasonal favorites (currently, the pumpkin-spice cake doughnut and the gingersnap-cookie doughnut), and local flavor specialties like Austin’s margarita doughnut. A sweet margarita you can eat? Obviously, The Salty gets Austin.

“We can’t wait to make our way into the neighborhood,” The Salty posted recently on social media. “In the meantime, time to party!”

openings breakfast doughnuts coffee

Belles of the Ballroom

9 Austin bar and venue experts take over popular Old Austin space near UT

29th Street Ballroom/Facebook

Changes are coming at the 29th Street Ballroom, but the goal is to preserve what already makes it special.

The evolution continues at the 29th Street Ballroom, the music venue formerly attached to Spider House Café. It's no secret, Resound Presents CEO and co-founder Graham Williams says, that he and a large team of other industry pros are taking over the space; but now they're ready to talk about what comes next for the venue and adjoining bar.

Although Spider House Café closed in 2020, the Ballroom stayed open, and has continued serving University of Texas students and anyone else who wants to see a show outside of the ordinary: punk shows, burlesque revues, fundraisers, and more. It'll stay open through most of the renovations, scheduled through January of 2025, and is expected to hold a grand opening in March.

Now Resound — one of Austin's top live music organizers, which was itself born from the ashes of another Austin institution — is lending two of its co-founders to managing the space going forward: Williams and Ian Orth. They're joining seven other team members from venues around town, many of them overlapping: Amy Mullins, Brian Tweedy, Jason McNeely, John Yaklin, and Shannon LeBoeuf of Hotel Vegas, Chess Club, Kinda Tropical, Tweedy’s, and Yellow Jacket Social Club, in varying capacities; and Brian Buscemi and Mike Sanchez of the Little Darlin’.

Williams emphasizes that although things will be changing at the Ballroom, the goal isn't to change anything people already love.

"Over the next few months as we kind of ease into the spring, we're using this downtime to revitalize things, decorate, revamp some of the stuff in the venue and the bar, and just kind of get things moving in the right direction," Williams says, "taking what's already popular about the venue and just adding to it, really."

Bar updates
The biggest shift will be turning the bar from an accessory to live shows into its own entity that's open even when there's nothing else going on. Amy Mullins, best known as a co-owner of Yellow Jacket Social Club, is overseeing that transition. She's never operated a venue that is primarily focused on music, and has been enjoying learning more about how to do it; she even worked the door recently when a staff member called out sick.

Mullins echoes Williams in assuring that the change is more about logistics than tone. It'll still feel like Old Austin, but she does express a hope to run more than the "typical venue bar," handing out simple drinks as quickly as possible. She's working on a new menu that includes wine, beer, craft cocktails, and non-alcoholic options like tea, kombucha, or mocktails. Regardless of what's on the schedule on any given night, Mullins says the menu will stay the same.

"There's no drink too complicated for us to make, however busy we are," she says.

Food options
Another goal for the team will be making sure the space works when there's not someone onstage to crowd around. They'll expand the front and side patios and create a food truck food court that features the same trucks that are there now, plus one newcomer. All in all, that includes Yalla Burger & Wings, Gyro Center, Li’l Nonna’s Vegan Pizzeria, Guppy’s Indian Fried Chicken, Waylon J’s BBQ, and Ay Chihuahua Tacos.

The expanded patio will connect to Tweedy's Bar next door, which also has its own food trucks. The idea is to create a space to hang out after shows that feels fit for the purpose. It's possible to stick around after events now, but the layout does create a vague feeling of loitering.

Artist and fan-friendly tweaks
On the entertainment side, Williams says some of the renovations include putting in a new sound system, redoing the green room, updating the facade, and repainting signs. Since the winter is a slower time for live music, they'll be taking advantage of the extra time to work on things before packing the calendar with more events than before. Resound will handle most of the bookings in live music, comedy, and DJ sets, welcoming both national and local talent.

Whatever the details end up being, this team has proved to Austinites that they know how to run venues worth visiting. And since they're all friends and business partners on multiple levels, it sounds like having this many cooks in the kitchen just isn't an issue.

"Some of us have been roommates and known each other since we were young," says Williams. "It's a good mix of people who are all very like minded, so a lot is being brought to the table per decision. So yeah, it's it's really exciting. Sometimes that's not the case. .... But with this project, it's a lot of really great, creative people that are good at what they do [and] they trust each other."

bars live music concerts comedy