Counter Café {Brunch}
A qaint cafe with a delightfully different menu.
Words by Jessica Devenyns Photos by Thamica McCook
Old-school laminate tables and a cacophony of cheerful voices greet you when you push open the door to the Counter Café. Though she owns the place, Debbie Davis rushes between tables proffering coffee, seating couples, and critiquing dishes. At 66 years old, her eyes reflect the spirit of someone 30 years her junior.
As the 23rd employee of Whole Foods, Debbie has watched the Austin food scene evolve. After decades on the outskirts, when she turned 55, she decided to join the fray when she beat out 60 applicants for the property and opened the first Counter Café where the old GM Steakhouse used to be.
Still mystified by her good fortune 12 years ago, Debbie says the realization that she was about to begin a whole new career only dawned on her when she found herself as the business owner, contractor, and principal investor for the project. “Then I went ’oh my God, what am I doing!?’” she remembers.
In order to officially open the restaurant, she admits that she had to lease her house and live on top of the restaurant for the first 3 years. “I’d walk downstairs every day and say, ‘Failure is not an option!’” she says with a hint of pride. And fail she did not.
Three years ago, Counter Café opened their second location on East 6th Street in a space several times the size of the original. Despite the upgrade, Debbie decided to stick to what she knew: Southern comfort food with quality ingredients. A brunch all day kind of a diner, the food has remained the same since the beginning. It’s classic diner food with an upgrade. Debbie smiles and says that was just her taste. Chicken breasts were on every menu in Austin. “That’s tasteless,” she adds. Instead she instructed her chefs to “do chicken thighs, the dark meat, the quail, the earthy, the crab.”
The result was spectacular. Using all local meat from Niman Ranch, Counter Café’s menu is delightfully different. Quail and eggs replace the expected bacon and eggs. Crab Cakes benedict surpasses even the most meticulously prepared eggs benedict. All the Southern-style favorites that accent the menu (pimento cheese, grits, and hash) have recognizable features that have been reimagined. Even the orange juice refuses to be average and is squeezed to order from a crate of fresh California navels.
It’s no wonder so many of the patrons are regulars. “People come in two or three times a week,” Debbie exclaims. She gratefully attributes her success to her hungry customers. “That’s why we’re here. Everybody kept coming back.”
To read more about other brunches featured, click here.
Contact:
countercafe.com
1914 E 6th St.
