A new restaurant and bar has popped up at the intersection of South Fifth and Mary. Catty-corner from the Twin Oaks Library, High Road DelicaTexan – the new deli from the team behind East Austin bar the Cavalier – brings elevated cocktails and an unpretentious all-day food menu to the Bouldin Creek neighborhood.
Chadwick Leger and Rachelle Fox, the husband-and-wife owners of the Cavalier, opened High Road at 915 W. Mary with salumist Ryan Wilson and chef Kate Rousset.
“As a kid, we called this [part of town] the hippie highway because you can kind of bypass the traffic and can get all the way down to deep South Austin,” Fox says. “So when we found this building, I remember standing out in front of it and we all were like, ‘Oh, this is it.’ We had the vision.”
You can walk into the cafe and order a sandwich or hot dog, get some coffee and drinks, or hit the game room in the back, which includes Skee-Ball and some arcade games. The room is covered in old-school memorabilia that Leger sourced. “These guys let me run with this room,” he says with glee. “I wanted to go with my childhood nostalgia for old Bo Jackson and Michael Jordan stuff, NBA Jam, Skee-Ball. It’s everything I grew up with.”
Whereas the Webberville-based Cavalier is more of a lunch-and-nighttime-focused bar, High Road focuses on bringing breakfast options to its family-friendly neighborhood clientele. With Wilson behind their housemade sausages and meats, they have a variety of breakfast sandwiches – including their signature Everything Is Bigger in Texas, which includes sage pork sausage, hash brown, and egg, along with Giardiniera mayo. Wilson’s also working to introduce klobasneks, or savory kolaches, to the breakfast menu, Fox says.
“We want to touch on all the regional areas of the U.S. and the great foods that they bring while also highlighting where all of us are from,” chimes Wilson, a member of the Burt’s Meat Market family in Houston and former employee of Franklin Barbecue and other Austin staples. Sharing his sausage-making history, he says, “I found a lot of comfort and mindfulness in the process of it. It allowed me to work out my thoughts and also express my creativity through the flavors.
“There’s a Chicago and Cajun influence to the sausages and the hot dogs here,” Wilson continues. “I just want the food to feel familiar where you can be from anywhere, come in, and be like, ‘Oh, I’ve never had this before but this reminds me of home.’”
Leger adds, “I’ll still argue with anybody that [Wilson’s] Andouille is our favorite Andouille. It’s like the best we’ve ever had. People from Louisiana come to our meat market for our Andouille and boudin.”
There’s also plenty of lunch and nighttime options at High Road as well. “I have to force myself not to eat the boudin balls every day because I will,” confesses Leger. You certainly can’t blame him – Wilson’s boudin is pretty addictive, and frying it to serve with remoulade sauce just ups the ante even more. Fox also hints at High Road launching boudin klobasneks in the future.
Some of Wilson’s favorites include the Italian sandwich and – unsurprisingly, as he grew up in Chicago – the hotdog options. With bratwurst, Andouille corndogs, beef links, and brisket hotdogs, there are plenty of meat options for folks looking for a quick snack. There are also vegetarian options such as the Hot Chxn sandwich, A.C.E. (avocado, cheese, and egg) breakfast sandwich, and salads, as well as an upcoming vegetarian Italian sandwich.
Cavalier frequenters are right to expect more than a few bangers from beverage director Leger’s High Road cocktail menu. Some of his favorite drinks include the FFRNC, which Leger describes as a “played-up rum and coke,” and the Big Red frozen margarita, which Fox says is her “favorite thing on earth.”
“I want to have fun with it and be playful with it but also for it to be taken seriously,” Leger says of the beverage program.
High Road’s grand opening party is on Jan. 31 and will include scavenger hunts for kids, a petting zoo, DJs, and all types of specials. With plans on becoming a community staple for the neighborhood the same way the Cavalier has become for the Webberville area, High Road’s owners are looking forward to becoming more integrated into their new home.
“This is a neighborhood-forward space where we care about the community and families that come in,” Wilson says. Whether it’s hotdogs and Skee-Ball or cocktails and sandwiches, High Road seeks to be everything to everyone in this formerly sleepy intersection.