Cafe leaves its mojo in Austin

Why eat at Kerbey Lane when S.A. has better tacos, pancakes, meatloaf, coffee and queso?

Kerbey Lane Cafe started in a bungalow on Kerbey Lane in Austin in 1980. I ate at Kerbey Lane in Austin in the ’80s. And the ’90s, the 2000s, the 2010s. And now the 2020s in San Antonio. And, friends, let me tell you: This isn’t Kerbey Lane.

It’s a commodity, a concept scrubbed of its Keep-AustinWeirdness and exported to a city that loves to hate Austin but still wants a piece of that Austin weird. It’s butter scraped over too much bread, scaled and repeated across 10 locations in Austin, San Marcos, Round Rock and San Antonio, where it opened in August out toward Six Flags Fiesta Texas in the same strip as another export, Dallas-based Velvet Taco.

It’s a diner that does queso, meatloaf, pancakes, chickenfried steak, coffee and tacos in a city that already does all of those things, most of them better. A diner that tosses in a few old favorites from the Austin days, a diner that tries to compress the spirit of 24 hours into 15, from 7 in the morning to 10 at night.

I visited first thing in the morning, the last shift at night and somewhere in between. And in this generic box of a place, I saw empty tables loaded with dirty dishes as the staff did side work at the bar counter an hour before closing. I drank half-warm coffee, ate queso so salty I thought it was coming from the chips and wondered why my food sat waiting in the kitchen pass long enough for it to wilt like yesterday’s flowers.

I saw an operation stretched thin, unsure of itself after two months in business.

But mostly, I experienced food that neither honored nor built on the Austin legend that inspired it in the first place. You can’t build on a legend with meatloaf that tastes and eats like stuffing with all that filler. And how can you charge $3.99 for a single overcooked breakfast taco on a stiff commercial tortilla in a city that wakes up to handmade flour tortillas every day?

Avocados have become Austin’s signature ingredient the same way California gets the avocado tag. But the kitchen did neither Austin nor avocados any favors with fried avocado tacos missing half their breading. An unbreaded deep-fried avocado is just a mushy warm avocado that no amount of pico de gallo can resuscitate.

Writing captions for photos to go with this review, I confused chicken tortilla soup with chili. I had to go back to my notes to remind myself that this bowl of bitter brown and cheese was supposed to represent tortilla soup.

Kerbey Lane failed two Diner 101 classes, the first with wagyu chicken-fried steak that tasted like breading from tip to tail, the meat inside so thin and overfried it splintered under a fork. But it’s wagyu, so it’s better, right? Not when all the marbling’s cooked out of it.

And that’s where the second failing grade kicked in, with a half-pound wagyu bacon cheeseburger that was actually

two quarter-pound patties smashed and shriveled, dodging for cover under a bun too big for the job. Good bacon, though, crossed like an X over beef that just got buzzered off “America’s Got Talent.”

But that’s not the full story of Kerbey Lane in San Antonio. They made a good showing with big buttermilk pancakes and a plate of migas with lots of chips and the option to go divorciados-style with tangy green and smoky red salsas. I liked a fried chicken tender Benedict over biscuits, even if the yolks were broken into golden pools that competed with the hollandaise and green chile sauces.

David’s Enchiladas gave me the warm fuzzies of the olden days, a reminder that I used to love chicken enchiladas with the personality of King Ranch casserole or Midwestern hotdish.

And I never would’ve thought Kerbey Lane could pull off a nice piece of seared salmon with tamarind Brussels sprouts and basil mashed potatoes. But there it was, all dressed up for a

white tablecloth date next to my pancakes.

My enduring love for Kerbey Lane in Austin was built on Nabil’s Mid-East Feast, a grilled chicken salad with feta, tabbouleh,

avocado and olives. In San Antonio, it was like grazing in the grass again (it’s a gas, baby, can you dig it), something healthy and filling and comforting, with its hippie alternaswerve fully intact.

I get it. I can’t live in the past, flashing my Austin flashbacks and wishing Kerbey was as cool as it was in the ’80s.

But in San Antonio, a city with better tacos, better pancakes, better meatloaf, better queso, better chicken-fried steak and better coffee, you have to do better. This isn’t better.

Photos by Mike Sutter/Staff Kerbey Lane redeemed itself somewhat with, clockwise from right corner, David’s Enchiladas, buttermilk pancakes, fried chicken Benedict and breakfast potatoes. However, the chicken tortilla soup, top, was a bitter disappointment.

A burger made with wagyu beef has to be good, right? Wrong. On this one, the two patties were smashed and shriveled, overshadowed by the too-big bun. The bacon was good, though.

Without the proper breading, these can hardly be called fried avocado tacos.