Down-home Cooking and Community at The Texan Cafe
Warren Smith was looking for a change.
"My wife and I were in the corporate world and the rat race just got to be too much for us. We were on the road a lot. Having grandsons being born back home. We really wanted to slow down,” he remembers. “We decided we were going to do something else.”
While searching for something new, they found something timeless: in 2018, the Smith’s took over the Texan Cafe & Pie Shop in Hutto, Texas.
“We'd actually been customers of the Texan Cafe for years. We interviewed with its owners, and, after talking a while, they chose us to take care of it.”
In 2023, the Texan is still standing strong and getting ready to celebrate its thirtieth year serving “the kind of food your grandma used to make.” That is, if your grandmother’s cookbook was chock-full of country comfort food classics. Golden-brown chicken fried steak, steaming hot and fluffy mashed potatoes, smothered steaks, grilled pork chops –– and my, oh my, the pie.
In taking over the Texan, the Smiths joined a legacy of providing for and preserving the hospitality and spirit of the Texas Hill Country. Maintaining a symbol of years gone by, roadside highway stops, and homegrown goodness.
Today, Warren and family are broadening their locally driven, country cooking horizons while doubling down on the down-home, family-focused atmosphere.
“We bought our second location — The Louisiana Longhorn Cafe in downtown Round Rock. It turned 20 this year and we’ve been telling that story for about a year and a half now. My oldest daughter even came back to the family business to help manage.”
At Sysco LABS, we build the ecommerce platforms Sysco customers like Warren use to shop for their restaurants’ ingredients online. Every day, we strive to push the restaurant industry forward through technology. We’re always curious to learn from the most innovative – and long-lasting – restaurants about what helps them succeed.
We sat down with Warren to talk about how important relationships, community, and partnership help a restaurant stand as an integral part of a community.
1. Don’t Mess with Success
Keeping up with the times for the Texan often means staying true to its roots.
“I’m a firm believer in not messing with success,” Warren says. “See what your customers like and stay on that course.
We stayed true to that at the Texan. We brought in a few new items but mostly solidified those proteins so that we know we’re serving top-quality stuff.”
That plan might seem simple, but the Smiths encountered a little skepticism when starting their Texan tenure.
“People were really freaked out that we were going to change stuff. The only thing we changed was that we got with Sysco and got a very consistent product.
Sticking to quality, consistency, and going with what works, Warren believes, brings people back time and time again.
“I’m all about consistency. If I’m a customer, I want to eat the same chicken fried steak this Wednesday as I eat next Wednesday as I ate last Wednesday — I don’t want it to change.
If you give people a really good product, with great service, at a fair price, you’re going to be successful. And that’s what we try to do every day.”
2. Put the Right Team Together
When you’re a new addition to an established tradition, it pays to have a vision for your people and the partners you work with.
“It boils down to putting together a good team –– both in the restaurant and out of the restaurant,” he says. “I strive for excellence. You know you’re never going to be perfect, but if you try to be your best every day – and work with people trying to be their best – people will keep coming back.”
Building that kind of trust and fostering dedicated connections doesn’t just keep the lights on; it keeps your reputation going strong.
“At the end of the day, it’s all about relationships,” Warren says. Does somebody really care about my business? And do they care about me? My employees?
Do they care about providing good customer service at a fair price?
And I think Sysco is that. Trying to do their best job for us so we can do our best job for our customers.”
3. Maintain a Lasting Legacy
Near-constant growth across central Texas means things are always changing in towns like Hutto –– and it’s not always easy for the classics to keep up.
“The area is exploding,” Warren says. “There’s lots and lots of new businesses coming in. Apartments and houses going up all over the place. And plenty of new restaurants are here.”
Warren’s not necessarily worried, though.
“People know The Texan Café. You can’t be around for 30 years and not have a reputation. We are an icon in Hutto. In fact, there’s a 5x8 photograph of the Texan Cafe at night in city hall.
Even though we bought the Texan, we truly moved in. We share our support and sponsor things in town, like school programs; we try to be a real part of the community.
We try to keep that reputation of treating everybody right and being part of the community. We work within the community, sponsor things in town like school programs throughout the year,” he says. “We don’t like to make a big deal about it –– it’s just who we are and what we do.”
Looking to the future, Warren, his family, and his dedicated crew know exactly what to do.
“I had an old CEO one time tell me, ‘We’re not in the business that we’re in. We’re in the people business.’ It all comes down to people.
I know if you take care of your people, your people will take care of you. That’s so true.”
Want to learn more about the intersection of food and innovation? Explore careers at Sysco LABS today.