Many longtime institutions in Austin, Texas, have disappeared, but Kerbey Lane Cafe has adapted while maintaining the culture that helped make it an Austin staple.
Mason Ayer, CEO of Kerbey Lane Cafe, says long-term success depends on adapting to Austin’s evolution while staying true to the values that built the restaurant nearly 50 years ago.
Ayer grew up around the restaurant his parents founded in 1980. He spent his childhood scraping gum from tables, bussing tables, waiting tables, and learning to cook. After graduating from college, he attended law school at the University of Virginia and worked as a corporate attorney in Austin before joining Kerbey Lane in 2010.
Ayer says his parents entered the restaurant business without a plan. “They created what really holds true to Kerbey Lane to this day, which is approachable, reasonably priced food, and a really friendly and welcoming environment,” he says. That allowed the company to grow gradually while remaining family-owned.
Ayer saw how difficult the restaurant industry could be. “It was a grind,” he says. “They were very, very busy. They were very stressed out. And I think they were just trying to make it work.”
He recalls frequent concerns about the business surviving. “I’ve always brought kind of a healthy level of paranoia,” he says. “This thing could collapse at any moment.”
Law school eventually led him into corporate and securities work, but he found the profession less fulfilling than he expected. “I was effectively a transaction cost,” he says. “It was really hard to see, well, what is it that I’m doing? What am I creating?”
Restaurants offered something different. “I get to actually see the fruits of my labor in real time,” he says. “It feels really good to go into our restaurants and see people smiling.”
Joining Kerbey Lane during the Great Recession required a leap of faith. “If I knew then what I know now, I don’t know if I would have had the courage to make the leap from a steady paycheck and predictable hours and predictable deal work to all of the things I get to deal with as a restaurant operator,” he says.
One of his first priorities was standardizing operations across locations. Menus, training, and service expectations varied. Ayer focused on creating consistency while improving service and operational discipline. “Let’s just get everything operating the same,” he says of his early approach. The changes paid off. “We saw a huge, huge bump between 2010 and 2016 in terms of our sales.”
Ayer says adaptation is essential. “How do you make it 50 years as a restaurant? It’s not by staying the same,” he says. Kerbey Lane has retained its breakfast focus while updating other parts of the menu to reflect modern Austin tastes.
Dishes such as steak frites and yellow curry salmon have replaced older staples. “We’ve had to evolve,” he says. “Austin today is very, very different than it was in 1980.”
The company also changed after the pandemic. Ayer describes COVID-19 as “big T trauma.” Sales dropped by 97% almost overnight, forcing layoffs and operational changes. He credits federal relief programs with helping restaurants survive. “The restaurants and the businesses that needed it got it, and it’s what kept us alive,” he says.
Community involvement remains central to Kerbey Lane’s identity. Ayer points to partnerships with schools, nonprofit organizations, and the company’s Kerbey Kindness program, which directs proceeds from special menu items to local charities. “We would not exist but for the community around us,” he says.
He also supports locally owned businesses. Ayer says independent Austin brands need stronger advocates as national chains and private-equity-backed companies expand. “We really are positioning ourselves as champions of local business,” he says. “We really believe in this idea of keeping Austin weird.”
Rather than opening new restaurants, Ayer says he prefers investing in existing locations and community initiatives. “The plan right now is not expansion,” he says. “It’s to make what we have as good as it can possibly be.”