Exclusive: Dee Dee Thai and Veracruz announce details on their new project, Leona
A combination akin to the Austin culinary version of the Super Friends has broken ground on a long-planned pastoral dream.
Chef Lakana Trubiana and husband, Justin, owners of Dee Dee Thai food truck and sisters Maritza and Reyna Vazquez of Veracruz All Natural plan to open Leona Botanical Café & Bar on a five-acre property at 6405 Brodie Lane in Sunset Valley early next year.
The property will feature the first proper, full-service, indoor kitchen for Trubiana, whose Northeastern Thai cuisine is some of the best Southeast Asian food in Austin. It will add to the Vazquez’s growing footprint in Austin, which began with their first smoothie and paleta trailer in 2008 and has grown to eight locations. The partners will also add a third restaurant that has yet to be identified.
The organic garden will provide produce for the Thai and Mexican counter-service restaurants and bar, which will offer indoor and shaded outdoor seating. The design team for Leona includes architecture firm Clayton Korte as well as Campbell Landscape Architecture and MIGL Engineering.
The culinary partners, who share similar backstories and culinary philosophies, first started discussing the possibility of working together while operating as neighbors on East Cesar Chavez Street in 2018.
“Our goal with this project is to create a beautiful space that stays true to our cultures and highlights our upbringings by sharing the traditions we learned from our mothers and grandmothers. We want people to experience a part of our homes,” Lakana Trubiana said. “I have so much respect and appreciation for all the hard work that Reyna and Maritza have put into creating Veracruz All Natural. It's inspiring to work with like-minded entrepreneurs with similar backgrounds, and I’m thrilled to open this new vision of ours together.”
The women-owned business will sit on the site of land long owned by the late philanthropist Betty Grubbs, a longtime supporter of the women’s athletic department at the University of Texas. Grubbs purchased the property with her husband in 1952, and died in 2018 at age 100. A portion of the proceeds from the sale are being donated to the Betty Grubbs Endowed Scholarship Program for women’s athletics at UT. Once Leona is open, the partners will hold an annual fundraiser for the endowment.
The new owners faced bureaucratic hurdles in achieving their vision on the land across the street from the Lowe’s Home Improvement store on Brodie Lane. The group applied for and received a zoning change for the property from single family residential to neighborhood commercial from the Sunset Valley city council. The city also granted special use permits for operating a restaurant within a neighborhood commercial district and on-premise alcohol consumption, along with variances regarding parking requirements, impervious cover and amendments to the landscape buffer.
“Witnessing it come to life here in South Austin is truly a dream come true and shows what can happen when women come together and support each other in this industry. We can’t wait to share this special place with the Austin community,” Reyna Vazquez said.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Dee Dee Thai, Veracruz All Natural team up for Leona in Sunset Valley
