It was a cloudless, clement Sunday that had Scott Roberts feeling wistful. Last summer, while driving around Buda with his wife, Susan, a clutter of memories came crashing down on him. There, he pointed out the window of his truck, was his middle school football field, the church where he was baptized, and the elementary school he attended in his youth. Curving down Main Street, parallel to the town’s rail line, the couple approached Mill & Grain Co., where Roberts and his grandfather would pick up feed for the family cattle on weekends. Overhauled from its days catering to surrounding dairy farms, the 27,000-square-foot landmark had since transformed into a multipurpose restaurant and retail mecca complete with a yoga studio, a salon, and a cocktail lounge. Conspicuously, the marquee space on its property now stood vacant—and Roberts’ imagination was thrown into overdrive.
“I’ve been wanting to do this kind of Southern food concept for 20 years,” Roberts says. “I just never found the right spot. But here was a place with so much history tied up in it—both personally and for the town itself. So, for a concept that’s all about remembering the past, it was perfect.”
Roberts is best known as the owner of the iconic Salt Lick BBQ in Driftwood, but his most formative culinary experiences were the after-church spreads prepared by his grandmother, Roxanna “Roxie” Roberts. Flaky buttermilk biscuits, fried chicken drizzled with honey, and green beans tangled up with shards of bacon and sautéed onion were common belt-busting delicacies for family and friends willing to venture over to Roxie’s Driftwood house on weekends. The warmth and camaraderie brought on by these Southern-style feasts, doled out by Roxie with her mane of red hair swishing around a circular oak table, were forever imprinted on his mind. And for decades, he sought to recreate that setting in a restaurant environment.
After chancing upon the Mill & Grain real estate in 2024, Roberts finally had his opportunity. Named after the family’s beloved matriarch, Roxie’s mimics those bygone days with vintage wallpaper and pictures inherited from his grandmother. The gable that once shrouded her home is now installed around the bar, and a faithful recreation of her chimney and patio has been constructed inside the 6,000-square-foot space—complete with stones taken from her Driftwood property. Roxie’s old oak table even made it into the eatery, prominently placed at the head of the dining room.
But the physical toil involved in recreating its aesthetics would pale in comparison to the culinary team’s efforts in the kitchen.
“My grandmother made everything by hand,” Roberts says. “And that means she never wrote down a recipe in her life. But I spent enough time in her kitchen watching her make these dishes that I knew we’d eventually get to the point where they’d taste just as I remembered them.”
First for Roberts was a biscuit that serves as a kind of Proustian foundation at the restaurant. With their enticing aroma, Roxie’s biscuits—mixed in a bowl made from a hollowed-out section of a tree—would often lure Roberts out of bed when he stayed overnight at his grandparents’ house. After three months of trial and error, he finally landed upon a golden simulacrum of that dish, which includes a feathery interior and just enough crackle on top. Ground up, the biscuits also serve as the breading for a top round chicken-fried steak cooked in a combination of tallow and lard.
Like at Salt Lick, guests can order entrées family style, with all-you-can eat sides like creamed corn and velvety mashed potatoes that are steamed instead of boiled. This little hack, learned under Roxie’s tutelage, helps retain the flavor of the potato by eschewing excess water. But if those early lessons in the kitchen taught anything to Roxie’s progeny, it’s the need for adaptability and some welcome panache. Roberts and his culinary team achieve that with inspired touches like Salt Lick sausage that’s ground, toasted, and dusted over deviled eggs; and smothered pork chops cooked sous vide instead of a simple pan sear. Although Roberts wryly notes that “bacon is the magic ingredient in much of my cooking,” the gravy topping his tender swine derives much of its smoky pop from a tasso ham made in-house.
“Roxie took great pride in her cooking, so we take those extra steps to make sure everything would be up to her standard,” he says. “I think that shows in one of the few places you can just sit, enjoy a nice meal, and watch the trains roll by.”
