Salt & Time Cafe: Opening Downtown

Ben Runkle and Bryan Butler’s artisanal butcher shop, responsible for so much meaty goodness in this town, is not closing its location on Seventh Street. Let’s have a round of applause for that fact alone in these challenging times, shall we?

But they – the team that began its Best of Austin-winning store (including a salumeria and restaurant) on the Eastside in 2013 – is opening a new cafe in Republic Square "in just a few weeks."

"The cafe will be open throughout the day," continues the company’s latest press release, "and we’ll be serving some of our greatest hits sandwiches from Seventh Street, as well as new creations from our culinary team."

To be more specific, that’ll be a variety of sandwiches, salads, and food bowls – with a controlled flood of locally roasted coffee and canned beer and wine to wash it down with.

While we wait for the unveiling of the convenient eatery at the corner of Fourth and Guadalupe, we’re also taking a look at this House Accounts deal they’ve cooked up with folks at inKind, whereby the public (that’s you, citizen) gets bonus credit to spend at the cafe … and Salt & Time instantly receives the funds they need to put the finishing touches on their new venue.

Bonus credit? Yeah, like: You pay $100, you’ll get $115 store credit; you pay $250, you’ll get $300 store credit; and so on, in that financially rewarding manner. Of course, that only works if you actually want what the place is selling. But we did mention, all journalistically basic at the beginning of this post, that this is Salt & Time we’re talking about, right?

Yeah. We reckon this carnivorous opportunity is a plaguetime food-budgeting no-brainer. And, though grandpappy may have advised against it when we were knee-high to a grasshopper, we’re happily counting our pastramis before they’re hatched.

Note: Quickly, now – this sort of thing tends to sell out all lickety-chop.