When I was growing up in Shreveport in the nineties, there were these little groceries everywhere that were also restaurants, like Maxwell’s Market and Cush’s Grocery & Market, or Stein’s Deli in New Orleans. I don’t know if it’s that common anymore, but that was on my mind when I opened Épicerie. The space was small, just sixty-five seats, in a converted house with a courtyard in a north-central Austin neighborhood, but we designed the dining room with shelves along two walls, with packaged specialty foods and wines, and a cheese case in the back. I cooked and we also made and sold pastries, jams, pickles, pâtés, and rilletts to go. The restaurant menu was eclectic—lots of Louisiana influences, obviously. We did really well, and…