As you step down the front steps onto the expansive deck at Mozart’s Coffee Roasters, you are treated to one of the finest views in Austin. Lake Austin’s tranquil waters sit between the wooden planks at your feet and little green hills on the opposite shore. At just about any time of day or night, you will find yourself surrounded by chatting groups of friends, canoodling couples, studying students and happy tourists.
The building Mozart’s occupies looks like it has been there for decades, but actually, the building and the rest of the Oyster Landing development have been around since 1993. Mozart’s building looks older because the bricks are reclaimed from Chicago and it was originally designed to be a boat repair shop.
Photo: Courtesy, Mozart’s Coffee Roasters on Facebook.
For a while, the location was actually a boat shop. “If you look at it, open it up and take that deck out, you can float a boat right into this hangar and work on it,” Mozart’s general manager Jack Ranstrom told Austin.com.
You won’t find any disassembled boats in Mozart’s, but you will find expertly brewed coffee and out-of-this-world sweets. While you might pop the top on a Folger’s can at home, you aren’t going to a coffee shop for packaged coffee brewed by someone else. And Ranstrom knows it!
“We have a very traditional German/Austrian style of roasting which really fits the name and the location. It’s a little bit slower of a roasting process than what’s popular now. The flavors are much smoother. It’s a much more European style,” Ranstrom said.
When Ranstrom talks about coffee and his role in bringing the Mozart’s roasting profiles and branding to life, his passion shows. This guy is serious about coffee, and it comes out in every cup.
Photo: Courtesy, Mozart’s Coffee Roasters on Facebook.
You may have just recently gotten into iced coffee. You’re not alone, but Jack Ranstrom has been making iced coffee since long before it became popular across the country. “We’ve had a full-service specialty coffee program in-house here for over 16 years,” he said.
Even if you don’t like coffee, there are ample beverage choices for you. According to Ranstrom, their hot chocolate is a huge seller around Christmastime because they use really good chocolate and whole milk. That’ll go great with a crisp breeze off the lake.
Mozart’s focuses on doing a few things very, very well. Their beverages and sweets bring people in from miles around. Ranstrom says they’ve pretty much cornered the market on late night coffee and dessert in their area. You can find plenty of bars open super late, but not many dessert places keep the same hours.
Mozart’s is definitely a unique place, which is saying something in a town as unique as Austin. “The atmosphere is definable by the customer in so many ways because we do not have a cultural play. We just have a spot on the lake. Our customer demographics are wide, varied and strong,” Ranstrom said. “I allow the customers to define the culture.”
So head out to Mozart’s Coffee Roasters on Lake Austin. You’re bound to fit in!
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Feature photo: Courtesy, Mozart’s Coffee Roasters on Facebook.
