Full English in South Austin, set to celebrate its 6-year anniversary in October, offers customers a British dining experience intended to be unlike any other in the neighborhood.
Guests can have high tea with friends, fish and chips for dinner on Friday evenings, or partake in a Full English ($8): a British breakfast with an egg, British bacon, British sausage, toast, mushrooms and tomatoes.
Full English’s namesake meal(Full English, $8) includes a British sausage, a piece of British bacon,
an egg, mushrooms, tomatoes and toast.[/caption]
“The Full English breakfast is quite a special breakfast because with American breakfasts you get a lot of similar things; with Full English breakfasts you get a different sausage and different bacon,” co-owner Alice Bachini-Smith said. “When people who have been to the U.K. come over here, they’ll appreciate that difference because it is not something that is exactly the same anywhere else.”
Co-owner Shadrach Smith added that Full English sources specialized bacon and makes its own British sausage, or bangers, because the restaurant could not find a supplier.
Husband and wife Smith and Bachini-Smith thought of opening a restaurant after customers of their British baked goods at the Sunset Valley Farmer’s Market requested a cafe that serves tea with the food. The owners wanted to evolve the business past a farmers market stand, Bachini-Smith said.
In 2010, they opened Full English off Manchaca Road north of Stassney Lane. Bachini-Smith said the neighborhood at the time was not as popular as it is now, and Full English provided a nearby cafe and coffee shop for locals to eat or socialize.
“We thought of opening a place where we would want to go because we live here,” Bachini-Smith said.
For the first few years, the duo worked 60 hours per week trying to get the restaurant to be profitable, Alice said. Now, the restaurant has staff. Additionally, the restaurant was originally meant to be complementary to the farmers market stand, but the restaurant quickly became more than what the couple could handle, Smith said.
A British pancake ($3) fills an entire plate and is served with lemon and sugar.[/caption]
Inside Full English, tables, furniture and decor are all procured from thrift stores and secondhand shops, Bachini-Smith said, evoking a do-it-yourself, improvised punk theme. If a piece of furniture needs to be replaced, then the owners go to a thrift store and get any available furniture, not needing to find an exact replacement of the broken chair or table, Bachini-Smith said, saving costs and adding to the eatery’s D.I.Y. charm.
Full English’s all-day breakfast menu, which includes the Full English meal, also offers breakfast sandwiches, pancakes, pastries and granola. The breakfast food is the reason why most people come to Full English, Bachini-Smith said.
Full English’s high tea ($15 per person), which must be booked 24 hours or more in advance, includes an assortment of tea sandwiches, scones, desserts and tea.
Full English 2000 Southern Oaks Drive, Austin 512-240-2748 • www.fullenglishfood.com Hours: Wed.-Thu. 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Fri. 9 a.m.-9 p.m., Sat. 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Sun. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., closed Mon.-Tue.
