Bouldin Creek Cafe's journey from shack to 25-year-old Austin icon
"I’m just so appreciative of the community and how they’ve all been behind us."
By Natalie Grigson for MySAMarch 1, 2025
Bouldin Creek Cafe was a staple in South Austin’s Bouldin Creek neighborhood well before multimillion-dollar homes and high rent prices took over the area.
Twenty-five years ago, this whimsical and earthy cafe started out as a veritable shack (a cute shack) where Elizabeth Street Cafe sits today. Owner Leslie Martin had inherited some money from her grandmother’s death and she wanted to start up a cafe with a community feel in a rapidly changing Austin.
"This was back during the dot com boom," says Martin, "And these little local places were going away. So the only way to fix it, really, was to put something back."
She started the original Boulding with about $18,000 and modeled it after some of her favorite haunts like Mojo’s on The Drag and Les Amis. The indoor space was tiny and the place was mostly outdoor seating. According to Martin, starting out was "hectic as hell."
For the next 10 years, Martin’s little restaurant (then called Bouldin Creek Coffeehouse) did the unthinkable: it became so popular the small space could no longer accommodate its growing crowd of tatted up, hipster-meets-hippie customers. People would wait in line for an hour just to sit down at this "glorified food truck." So, Martin set her sights on an unlikely new home just up the road: a Big G Tire that had been out of business for several years.
Perhaps because Martin was the sole owner of the cafe and there just weren’t too many cooks in the kitchen, she was able to transfer over the original location’s characteristic splashy colors and sunny granola charm, seemingly effortlessly. She also kept some of the original window signage from Big G as an homage to the old business. Still today, Wheels Balanced, Flats Fixed can be seen in one of the front windows.
With the move came a few changes. Instead of waiting in a slow-moving line to order at the counter, customers were provided with table service, ample outdoor seating, and a longer menu.
Many of Bouldin’s original menu items like The Predictable, The Tipico, The Garden Breakfast, and the grilled cheese are still some of the most beloved. Of course, prices may have changed a bit, but still, Bouldin maintains some of the lower restaurant prices in Austin, all while providing a fair wage to employees.
"We have health insurance, paid time off for 30 or more hours. Honestly, I’m just doing it and figuring out how to make it work," Martin says, adding, "I wouldn’t necessarily recommend our business model to everyone– just doing it and then figuring it out– but it works for us."
Twenty-five years after it originally opened, Bouldin Creek remains a South Austin favorite, welcoming crowds of crunchy couples, old Austinites, punks, families new to the area, business lunchers, and their dogs everyday. The inside of the restaurant is a mishmash of bright, sunny yellow and sky blue walls lined with artwork from locals (which can be pursued online as well). The front room is mostly a shrine to coffee with a large counter service area, behind which baristas and servers take drink and food orders, dish out delectable vegan pastries, make lattes, and usually, chat with the regulars.
In the next room, two-tops and four-tops are dotted around the space, lined with heavy wooden chairs and some backed with booths.
It seems like every surface of Bouldin–inside and out–is covered in some sort of sticker, piece of artwork, community announcement, or flyer. It feels both hippie and grunge; old school and new. It feels a lot like South Austin.
And just like Martin wanted all those years ago, it feels like community.
"It’s hard to believe that we’ve been in this other building for 15 years now," says Martin. "There are moments when the stress gets to me, but then I see what it stands for, and what it is, and what people are getting from it. And it definitely makes it worth it."
"I’m just so appreciative of the community and how they’ve all been behind us,” she adds. “Even before when it took an hour to get food!"
Find it: 1900 South First St., Austin, TX 78704
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