Today we’d like to introduce you to Jonathan and Jamie-Len Royer.
Hi Jonathan and Jamie-Len, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
In the mid-1980s, my parents both found themselves out of a job due to the oil bust in Houston. We would often visit Round Top when I was younger and developed a relationship with the people who owned what then was known as Round Top Cafe. In 1987 my dad was offered to take over the cafe on a handshake agreement with $200 in the register and a promise to continue paying the bills. My dad, Bud, had worked in the service industry since 1969. The Family began to grow the cafe into what it has become today. It is now recognized nationwide and a place you must visit when coming to Round Top. I started washing dishes and bussing tables when I was 6 years old and worked my way up to cooking and waiting tables. Over that time, I remember driving home every weekend from college to come work. I graduated from the University of Texas in 2004 with a degree in history and government. It was my intention to get a job teaching somewhere but I just couldn’t see myself working anywhere other than the cafe. It’s been in my blood as far back as I can remember. My wife and I made the decision to buy the cafe from my family in 2016. We have continued to work harder than ever to make sure the legacy remains the same. We not only run the cafe but also do 100s of caterings and fundraisers throughout the year as well as cooking classes and wine dinners monthly, which sell out almost immediately! During the lockdown of 2020, I am proud to say we continued to thrive more than ever before. From drive-through meals and deliveries to working with local churches to provide hot food, fried chicken drive-thrus on Sundays, sometimes up to 450 of those. We were able to do enough with all of these things and to-go orders through the cafe half door to keep ALL of our staff without laying anyone off. In this time, we also wrote a cookbook that launched last March. Today, we are working harder than ever before to evolve and move forward with the expansion of Royer’s Cafe.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Of course, there were hard times prior to us buying the business from the family, but we have had ours as well. In 2017, just a little over a year after signing the final paperwork, Houston was badly hit by Harvey. We are a town with a population of 90 during the week, but on the weekend, it more than quadruples in numbers due to all of our Houston friends with second homes out here. When they were so badly hit, they couldn’t come up. We saw a drastic decrease in sales, and then we ended up losing Labor Day weekend. Shortly after that was the beginning of our fall antique show, and the phone just wasn’t ringing like normal. Everyone was busy fixing up their messes after the hurricane. Fast forward to 2020. We had taken our kiddos to Galveston during spring break. We were headed back home and stopped to grab a bite to eat in Houston. The restaurant we were at was like a ghost town where normally it would be hopping. While sitting there the Houston Rodeo was cancelled. We continued hoping and praying that the antique show wouldn’t be cancelled. We were set to start taking reservations the next day. To put this into perspective, we do about 25% of our sales for the year in this 3-week period twice a year. My wife sat on the phone all day the next day taking reservations and not 24 hours later the show was cancelled, and we were ordered to close and do to-go food only. There were lots of tears and late-night planning sessions of stuff we could do to continue to make money and not lose what my dad had worked so hard to grow. We were able to overcome this, but we also worked harder than we have ever worked before. Grateful for all of those who chose to shop small businesses and help keep us all going.
As you know, we’re big fans of Royers Round Top Cafe. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
We are a small 11-table cafe with funky eclectic vibe. You can’t put the tip of a pen anywhere on the walls or ceiling that isn’t covered with some memorabilia. We have even recently started our own wall of menus from our favorite places we eat when we get away. We started selling 5-10 pies a week and now sell anywhere from 100-500 pies out the door a week. Annually we ship somewhere around 10,000 pies, 2022 6500 of those were between November and December. Yes, they are all baked out of this 1600-square-foot cafe. We are definitely known for our pies. We have been featured on the food network, CBS Sunday morning news, The Day Tipper, Texas Country Reporter (just to name a few), and numerous other magazine, newspaper, and tv segments. You know one thing that sets apart from others is the relationships that are built all centered around good food and good conversation. You come in a stranger and leave a friend. It is all about the relationships. We are most proud of our consistency. Every time you walk through the doors, we hope that the flavor of the food and the service you receive is the same time and again. Consistency is super important to us. How else would we have made it 35 years. One of my wife and I’s passions is going into someone’s home and cooking for them! We call this Cooking with JB and Jamie. Our cookbook is a play-off of this. We offer full-service catering. We have traveled to Alabama, New York, Mississippi, and Oklahoma to cook onsite for people. Weddings, dinners in the field, and just a demo for a company we third-party ship through. We ship our pies, fried chicken, short ribs, whole beef tenderloins, sides, sauces, and seasonings nationwide. More we are working on soon!
What are your plans for the future?
We plan to keep things going here in Round Top. Our dream is to take our Cooking with JB and Jamie on the road. We have plans in the works already to go to Nashville and California. We would love to let this little restaurant continue to thrive. But we have dreams, maybe another one in a different town or state. We love the aspect to dream!!!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.royersroundtopcafe.com
- Instagram: @royersroundtopcafe
- Facebook: ROYERS ROUND TOP CAFE
