City of Lakeway examines new hotel occupancy tax - Community ...

DINING
Texas Honey Ham Co.
Restaurant owners help foster community relationships
By Taylor Short
Freshness, consistency and comfort are
the three tenets that turned a simple
Westlake restaurant into a place
where neighbors, family and friends meet
for more than just breakfast and lunch.
Texas Honey Ham Co., owned by Kelly
Weiss, Trent Hunt and Robert Siller,
began in 2004 when Weiss decided to
leave his position as a trial lawyer after
seven years for a more uplifting industry—the
ham business.
“I just got to where I wanted to see
people that are happy to see me,” he said.
Inspired by his uncle’s ham business
in Lubbock, where he and Hunt grew up,
Texas Honey Ham Co. was born. However,
the two realized while their spiral-cut
honey hams fly off the shelves each Thanksgiving,
Christmas and Easter holiday, they
needed a menu to sustain the business the
rest of the year.
Siller, who had worked with Hunt
at an Austin Rudy’s Bar-B-Q location,
soon joined the team, and the company
expanded further.
The menu at this point included four
sandwiches, two sides and a cookie. Weiss
said they decided to extend the menu
options to breakfast in July 2006.
Months later the company introduced
breakfast tacos coupled with Hunt’s
homemade salsa recipe—a move that
would draw many more customers than
the trio expected.
“It wasn’t kind of packed—I mean it
was getting to be a problem,” Weiss said.
“There wasn’t any place for people to
stand and make their order.”
Texas Honey Ham Co.
3736 Bee Caves Road, Ste. 6A
Austin
330-9888
www.texashoneyham.com
Hunt, the source of virtually all the
recipes, was driven to use leftover but
perfectly good ingredients to add variety
to the menu.
“There were tomatoes that we didn’t
use that day so I started to experiment
and then we had tomato soup,” Hunt said.
“We were cutting people off slices of ham
and now we have a ham bone left over so
I threw it in a pot with some water and
some beans.”
The restaurant grew even more popular
in West Lake Hills, drawing several
customers who would become regulars and
help spread the word around town.
This boom in business, in addition to
supporting schools and local churches,
helped push Texas Honey Ham Co. past
“restaurant” into the category of community
hub where people can talk face-to-face.
“Don’t come over here to use Wi-Fi
because we don’t have it,” Weiss said.
“We’re trying to harken back to when
a local restaurant was a place to have a
conversation.”
Hungry teens from nearby Westlake
High School flood the dining room during
the busy lunch hour. Several stop to greet
the three owners as if they have known
them for years. In many cases, they have.
The company’s success could be mostly
attributed to these relationships with the
community, but a devotion to one of the
world’s most popular meats helps, too.
“Everything we’ve done has been on a
shoestring,” Weiss said, “but we’ve been
able to not just make it work, but make it
thrive.”
360
Westbank Dr.
Westlake Dr.
Bee Caves Rd.
Photos by Chris Kominczak
impactnews.com • May 2011 | FEATURES | 25
From left, owners Robert Siller, Kelly Weiss and Trent Hunt opened Texas Honey Ham Co. in 2004, each
bringing expertise from their different backgrounds.
Breakfast
• Breakfast tacos ($1.99 for two items, 50 cents for
each additional item)—Choose from eggs, cheese,
bacon, sausage, honey ham, baked potato hash,
turkey, frijoles or pulled pork
• Taco ranchero ($2.29)—Taco with fresh salsa
• Pig in a blanket ($2.49)—One pancake wrapped
around grilled honey ham
Lunch
• Ham, turkey or bacon sandwiches ($6.29)—
Served with cheese, lettuce, tomato, red onion,
mustard and mayo on wheat or white bread
• Club sandwich ($7.29)—A triple decker sandwich
with ham, turkey, bacon, Swiss and cheddar
cheese, lettuce, tomato, red onion, mustard and
mayo on wheat or white bread
• Pulled pork sandwich ($7.29)—Tender pulled
pork with pickles, red onion and homemade honey
barbecue sauce on a freshly baked bun
Hams
• Spiral-sliced honey-glazed hams ($6.99/lb.)
Catering
• Box lunches ($8.99 per person)—Cold sandwich
with chips and cookie or choice of small soup or
side
• Buffet to go ($8.99 per person)—A selection of
meat, bread, sides, sandwich fixings, iced tea, ice,
condiments, plates, cups and utensils
• Choice slice rolls ($49.99 for a tray of 24)—
Home-baked roll with choice honey glazed ham
Rajat Gupta, MD
Board Certifi ed in Neurology & Pain Medicine
Former Instructor of Pain Management at
Johns Hopkins University
– in Westlake –
Hungry patrons fill the dining room during the busy
lunch hour April 12.
The store sells spiral-sliced honey-glazed hams
ranging from 7 to 10 pounds.
• Headaches (including Botox ® )
• Spine Pain
• Fibromyalgia
• Other Chronic Pain Disorders