Cookbook Café Will Offer Food, Wine At New Austin Central Library

AUSTIN, TX — Libraries traditionally provide nourishment for the brain and, sometimes, for the soul when patrons find books that resonate powerfully upon reading. Yet when Austin's new central library opens next month, one of its features will provide actual food.

The proposed Cookbook Café, a unique feature at the developing site, will offer a locally sourced menu based on cookbooks at the library available for checkout, the Austin American-Statesman reported. The eatery emerged as the sole respondent to the city's call for proposals from the restaurant industry for an on-site dining spot.

It's not clear why nobody else seemed interested in the idea, the newspaper noted. But the winning (well, the only) entry already shows some promise. Locally based Elm Restaurant Group operates a trio of successful ventures popular with diners: 24 Diner, Easy Tiger and Italic.

The restaurant company would fill the 3,786-square-foot space at the developing library devoted to food service, with walk-up coffee bar and table service offered. A wine bar is said to be among the offerings.

The Statesman learned there was some concern among would-be library diners whether enough people would be interested in having a meal while visiting the library given the unconventional location. But the bucolic location of the site could yield fruit for Elm Restaurant Group thinking outside the box.

Off Cesar Chavez Street and West Avenue, the space will front Lady Bird Lake and Shoal Creek Trail, conveniently located just blocks from City Hall. Cookbook Café officials seem to have already envisioned this pastoral setting, with plans to offer a service enabling patrons to "check out picnic baskets like they would a book, but just for the afternoon picnic.

As inducement to build the eatery, Elm Restaurant Group will get $450,000 from the city for space improvements before recouping those costs in rent over the course of a decade. In those ten years, the city would recover some $2.3 million in rent, more than recovering the initial expenditure. Another incentive: All events staging events at the new library will be required to use Cookbook Café for catering and drinks.

The $126.6 million library, expected to open next spring, will include a performing arts center and a space for weddings and cocktail mixers. Lake|Flato Architects and Shepley Bulfinch were tapped to design the new space, replacing the Faulk Central Library at 800 Guadalupe St. which outgrown its current space.

"This new flagship building overlooking iconic Lady Bird Lake will be devoted to Austin's intellectual inquiry and cultural vitality," city officials write about the new library under development.

Among its features and amenities beyond the street-level café:

• A 350-seat state-of-the-art event center to host readings, lectures and screenings and to engage and educate all segments of our community.
• An art gallery that will feature the work of local and national artists.
• Special display areas and collections showcasing Austin’s musical and cinematic achievements.
• A children’s library that will feature a craft room and a reading porch designed to enhance children’s reading experience and spark imaginations.
• A teen library that will provide young adults with a dedicated space promoting creative and collaborative learning.
• Recycled Reads, the Austin Public Library's zero-waste bookstore.
• A rooftop garden featuring native species and stunning views of the city’s skyline.
• A rooftop special event area.
• A cooking demonstration area to host on-site cooking classes that celebrate Austin’s culinary consciousness.
• A bicycle corral adjacent to the Lance Armstrong Bikeway.
• An underground 200-car parking garage.

The new library is a decade in the making, beginning with a 2006 bond proposition approved by voters to build the new library. By December 2010, city council approved a $120 million funding plan followed by a groundbreaking at the site in May 2013.

>>> Photos via Austin Public Library Friends Foundation.