The Chuckwagon Cafe — Restaurant in Austin

This was my first and only experience with the cafe. I work for a state agency, and my division had an all-day meeting in the Barbara Jordan building. The food we had delivered did not come with utensils. I volunteered to get some from this cafe.

Before I describe what happened, it should have occurred to me it was a private establishment. It did not. I'm not based in the area, and none of my colleagues were either. I assumed the cafe was run by the state.

While I was collecting the plastic utensils, a man came up to me and asked me "what makes you think you can steal from me?" He did not introduce himself, and at first I thought he was messing with me.

Why on earth would I intentionally steal while wearing my State of Texas badge in a building with my colleagues?

Through his long-winded rant, where he outright accuses me of stealing and threatening to bring "the department of public safety" out to resolve it, I learned he's the owner.

It was an extremely unnecessary and rude interaction. All that needed to be said was that the plastic utensils were not free and that I would need to pay for them. One, maybe two sentences.

Instead I got word vomit. When I finally could get a word in, I explained I misunderstood the nature of the establishment and that I would pay. It took my saying THREE times I would pay before he stopped ranting and accusing me of stealing before he said "well now I have to figure out how much to charge you." The interaction lasted around 10 minutes.

Which again, all that needed to be said was I would...

There’s not a lot of kosher, vegan, vegetarian options. Most everything has some type of pork or animal product. Not a lot of vegetarian options either, pretty much everything has meat or some type of animal product in/on it. When asked if a salad could be made without ham was told no 🙁 but if you don’t eat kosher, vegan, or vegetarian its good 😊 if they could just leave ham, bacon and pork off some of the dishes it would be great. Just wish there were more options for all types of diets/dietary...

Nice easy walk to get there from work, has fresh n good hot meals if you get there before they run out, if they do run out you still have good sandwiche and salad type options. They also have some great convenience store type items if needed. The staff has always...