Kerbey Lane Cafe Celebrates 45 Years in Ever-Changing Austin with Updated Menu

On May 5, 1980, David and Patricia Ayer opened the doors to a new Austin diner called Kerbey Lane Cafe, so named after the oak-lined little street where it sits. The restaurant was born of the desire to serve healthy, affordable, scratch-made food; and in the early days, it even doubled as a home for the Ayer family. 

“That’s where we lived for the first six months of my life,” David and Patricia’s son, Mason, says as we sit surrounded by the clinking of dishes and burble of voices in Kerbey Lane Cafe’s South Lamar location. It’s lunch hour on a Tuesday, and Mason, Kerbey Lane’s now owner, is pointing to a photo of his family at the original location. 

“This is it, this is the original. And that little boy right there, that’s me. That’s my mom holding me. We are on the steps of the original. And then there’s the Lady Lamp,” he laughs. “My mom bought it in a thrift store and decorated the restaurant with it when it first opened, and it still sits on the bar over at the original Kerbey Lane.”

Preserving culture amid change

It has been 45 years now since that original Kerbey Lane opened its doors, and like the city surrounding it, a lot has changed. 

And in some ways, it feels exactly the same. 

When Mason took over running the business 15 years ago—”by accident,” he laughs—he knew he wanted to preserve the culture his parents had instilled in Kerbey.

“There was always this tremendous amount of love infused into this organization. You can even see that with our server,” he notes, waving a hand. Our server has been playful, joking warmly with the “Big Boss” throughout our time together. 

So the culture had to stay, but Mason wanted to streamline things between the restaurants a bit. After all, the restaurant started out as a singular Mom and Pop diner, but when Mason took over there were four locations and the dynamics had shifted.

“Mom and Pop had been divorced for 25 years,” he says. “There was a lot of headbutting.”

So he became an intermediary of sorts, and he aligned things like menus and systems between the four locations: South Lamar, Kerbey Lane, Anderson Mill and 183, and Guadalupe. 

Expanding the legacy

This cozy group of four local restaurants would soon double under Mason’s ownership. Between 2011 and 2016, they added four new Austin locations, and between 2018 and 2021, three more in Mueller, San Marcos, and most recently, San Antonio.

But then things sort of plateaued for Kerbey. Mason describes how they were stumped; they’d been doing the same thing for decades in Austin and had always done fine. They hadn’t changed a thing. 

“We hadn’t changed a thing,” he repeats. 

But Austin had changed. 

“For better or for worse there is an ever-shrinking list of thirty, forty-plus-year-old Austin brands. Because Austin is so different. And what worked in 1990 doesn’t work today,” he says. 

Introducing Kerbey 3.0

Enter Kerbey Lane Cafe’s current rebranding plans. Internally, they’re calling it “Kerbey 3.0.”

This new plan is essentially a revamping of all Kerbey Lane restaurants’ menus. They’ve added items like steak frites, blistered shishito peppers with cashew aioli, parmesan truffle fries, salmon curry, and other dishes that are less diner, more “casual dining,” as Mason calls it. 

Mason further points to some items on the table. “We used to have plastic glasses; now we’re using glass. We have appetizer plates on the table. And we’ve totally upgraded our coffee program,” he says, sipping a butter coffee with maple syrup. 

“We want to be this kind of diner-y, whimsical place. Yes. But let’s also meet Austin where it is now.”

And apparently, where Austin is now is a place that prefers casual dining to diners; a city that needs lattes over drip; and certainly no longer a town with late night hours and the munchies. 

“When I started in 2010, the Guadalupe location would have an hour-and-a-half wait at 3:30 in the morning,” Mason says. “And that demand just isn’t there anymore.”

This move away from 24/7 dining at Kerbey Lane—and in Austin in general—started before 2020, but as Mason tells it, the pandemic was the final nail in the coffin.

“The pandemic was terrible,” he sighs. “It was really, really hard.”

45th anniversary

Unlike some other old Austin staples that closed their doors for good, Kerbey Lane not only survived the pandemic, but has since grown.  

“Me and Kerbey are actually the same age,” Mason says. “Every year Kerbey celebrates its birthday a little bit before me—about six months before me.”

Though festivities are yet to be announced, Austinites should keep their eyes on Kerbey Lane Cafe’s Instagram for details of a celebration that will not only honor Kerbey Lane, but Austinites as well.   

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