Endless Road Trip Marfa: Buns N’ Roses
That photo might not seem like the fanciest, most stylistic presentation of chips & salsa in the world, and you know what, it’s not. But what it is is fresh, thick corn tortillas fried to order for our table, dusted with the perfect amount of salt and served with fresh, garlicky salsa. That’s how they DO it at Buns N’ Roses in Marfa.
But let’s rewind a bit. The second day of our West Texas roadtrip extravaganza, we moseyed from our teepees at El Cosmico to Buns N’ Roses, about a 40 minute walk in the hot desert sun. (We could have driven I guess, but we’d all imbibed quite a few mimosas back at our lodging. Duh, vacation.) I had heard good things about their breakfast from the peeps at El Cosmico and besides that, I couldn’t turn down a restaurant with a pun for a name.
It’s an accurate pun, too, because Buns and Roses is a 2-in-1 stop: both a bakery (buns) and florist (roses). I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE.
Upon approach, you feel like you might be entering an abandoned/haunted greenhouse…
But inside it’s quite cute and cozy! The kitchen is run by a mother-daughter team, which I love. There were only a couple other tables in for brunch around 11:30am on a Saturday, and service was super quick with plenty of coffee refills – always appreciated. The menu is full of your standard egg dishes, plus offerings from their bakery: honey wheat bread, beer bread, and of course their famous buns. Tragically they were sold out of all their donuts and pastries by the time we rolled in so we couldn’t try any of their eponymous buns! But the breads/toast were GOOD.
In Austin we’re all about the breakfast tacos, but once you head west you’re in breakfast burrito country, cowboy. I ordered a big one with scrambled eggs, swiss cheese, onion, spinach, bacon, and mushroom. Basically an omelet rolled in a giant, fresh flour tortilla. Oh yeah, and more of that smooth salsa.
I also sampled some of Rob’s cheese grits which were, unsurprisingly, awesome. His omelet was huge, too. On the side there is that fresh baked beer bread with some sort of sweet butter… god, it was so good, and normally I’m not really into bread/toast with my breakfast.
As I mentioned with our chips & salsa appetizer above… Marfa may be an artists’ town, but the food at cafes like Buns N’ Roses isn’t pretentious or trendy. It’s just really good, fresh, local cuisine made from scratch and served with care. Oh, and by the way, my huge breakfast burrito, portion of chips & salsa, and gigantic iced coffee set me back about $7. Can’t argue with that.
But next time I’m back in town, I’m making sure to show up early enough to Buns N’ Roses to try one of those damn buns.
