Tastes Good

26 Austin restaurants and bars that are giving back on GivingTuesday

I Live Here I Give Here is leading the Central Texas region for its sixth GivingTuesday.

Even Austinites who love to give time and funds on a regular basis — weekly volunteering, donating in friends' names for birthdays, participating in crowdfunding when it comes up — it’s a lot to keep track of. Especially during the holiday season, shopping for friends, family, and busy-time-of-the-year incidentals, a lot of our good intentions fade to the background.

There is a worldwide holiday to keep people on track: GivingTuesday, a recent addition to the Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday pipeline, asks people to take a step back from the consumerist shuffle and think about what they can give outside of their usual habits.

This year, it falls on November 29, and local nonprofit I Live Here, I Give Here (ILHIGH) has a long cheat sheet for Austinites looking to make a difference, including a roster of 26 food and drink businesses donating a portion of proceeds from November 26 to December 2.

GivingTuesday is split into regions, by country and then further by city. ILHIGH, the organization that founded Amplify Austin Day in 2013, is going into its sixth GivingTuesday as the official leader of the Central Texas region, offering a searchable, categorized list of Austin nonprofits that would love some help. The restaurant portion is a little different; organized in partnership with Good Work Austin, a restaurant industry support system that also works against food insecurity, the initiative gets Austinites familiar with local restaurants while knowing their tab is going to a good cause.

The 26 restaurants participating in ILHIGH’s GivingTuesday initiative are:

North Austin: Barrett's Coffee, Black Star Co-op, Brentwood Social House, Casey's New Orleans Snowballs, Eldorado Cafe, Epoch Coffee, Little Ola's Biscuits, West Pecan Coffee + Beer (Pflugerville)
Northeast Austin: L'Oca d'Oro, Southern Soul Bowl, Taterque, Tso Chinese
East Austin: Bento Picnic, Dai Due, Flitch Coffee, Greater Goods Coffee, Hillside Farmacy, The Cavalier
Downtown: Little Wu, Olamaie, Swift's Attic, Wu Chow
South Austin: Maie Day, Patika, Tso Chinese, House Wine
West Austin: Chez Zee, Epoch Coffee

Interested donors who can’t make it for a meal can use amplifyatx.org to donate to ILHIGH directly, or to donate to another organization, to which they may add an additional contribution to the ILHIGH fund before checkout.

More information about the GivingTuesday campaign is available at ilivehereigivehere.org, and on the organization’s social media.

lunch dinner drinks cocktails coffee charity

Back to the Plow

Homey Austin jam and bake shop closing and returning to farmers market

Confituras/Instagram

Confituras Little Kitchen is closing its brick-and-mortar store, but feeling optimistic about the future.

A famers market find is returning to its natural environment after six years in a brick-and-mortar location. Confituras Little Kitchen, which specializes in locally sourced preserves, is closing its jam and biscuit shop after service on Sunday, December 22. However, it will continue selling goods at the Barton Creek Farmers Market and via retailers.

Confituras announced the change in a newsletter to its customers in December. The letter called the news "bittersweet."

"Although the brick and mortar will no longer be, the good news is that this will be a fresh new start for us – we are bursting with energy and creativity at the thought of being back out in the community where it all started for confituras," it said.

The kitchen is closing because the lease is up, and the team has decided to "give up the chase." The newsletter emphasized the ups-and-downs of business over the past several years — ones that were chaotic for just about any business, let alone a small, fairly niche food operation.

"So much has happened since we decided to open a brick + mortar – a wonderful kickstarter fundraiser, THE PANDEMIC, the AFTER-EFFECTS OF THE PANDEMIC, and an ever growing city," the letter says. "We tried so very hard but never really got our footing. We know we are not alone, many small business are in the same boat. We renewed our lease during the pandemic because we were hopeful we could make it work - the changing times had other ideas."

Finally, it shared how customers could keep enjoying Confituras creations:

The Barton Creek Farmers Market is open at 2901 S. Capital of Texas Hwy. every Saturday from 9 am to 1 pm.
A list on confituras.net compiles retailers including Royal Blue Grocery, Farmhouse Delivery, and Antonelli's Cheese Shop.
Jam share and Table22 subscription customers will have more instructions coming soon about picking up their goods in January at the same space, 2129 Goodrich Ave.
Customers may also reach out to inquire about continuing to order meals directly.

The kitchen also hosted frequent events and workshops, but the letter did not address this aspect of the business.

A shorter message shared on Instagram has inspired 63 comments so far, five days later. Customers eulogized the shop for its community feel and providing a sense of regularity during the height of the pandemic thanks to weekend pick-ups.