First Look: Community Kitchen + Taproom

Community Vegan, the beloved food truck from Austin native Ericka Dotson and Victoria native Marlon Rison, recently moved to a new brick-and-mortar space at 3110 Windsor in West Austin. Known for their vegan take on soul and Southern comfort food, the couple have rebranded and now are open for business as Community Kitchen + Taproom.

Rison’s vegan journey started when he was a radio host and powerlifter in the DFW area. He watched What The Health, a 2017 documentary that examines the American food and health industries, and walked away feeling that he needed to make lifestyle changes and have a better relationship with what he put into his body. After removing meat from his diet, he began losing weight and feeling healthier in less than 30 days; within a year, he lost over a hundred pounds. That motivated him to become a vegan influencer and cook. 

“People of color, we die earlier and sooner than anyone else,” says Rison (both he and Dotson are Black). “We don’t live as long as [other] people but yet at the same time, we’ll talk about things like increasing wealth and generational wealth, et cetera. But it can’t be all about just getting out there to make your money if we don’t live long enough to accumulate it. The real wealth comes from how you live and treat your body. Otherwise, if you’re making all this money, but you die at 50 anyways, what does it matter?”

After going back and forth to L.A. to learn more about the vegan movement in SoCal, Rison, along with Dotson, settled on Austin as their business’ home base, citing the city’s liberal open-mindedness as well as Dotson’s familiarity with the area. After a few years near Kenny Dorham’s Backyard in East Austin and a brief stint at the former Roland’s Soul Food building on Chestnut, they’ve now set up on the corner of Windsor and Exposition in a vibey new location filled with plants, books, and TVs projecting idyllic nature scenes. Regarding the latter, Rison says he wants to “bring an element of nature inside to a comfortable area.”

“People of color don’t do as many outdoor activities as we should,” he states. “[Ericka and I] are big hikers. We’re trying to inspire people to get outside. You may be urban as hell, but you’re gonna get that energy when you come see me, whether you want it or not. Hopefully, as people sit here and take in this energy, they also get inspired to say, ‘You know what, this makes me want to go outside.’ You’re not gonna walk up out of here without feeling closer to nature in some form, whether it’s via the food or what you see on the screens.”

Community’s signature cuisine is based primarily on different mushrooms, seasoned and presented to evoke classic American dishes. “We don’t serve diet food here. We’re deep frying it. This isn’t rabbit food!” says Rison, laughing. “Maybe you get the salad if you want, but our main focus is giving you that soul food cuisine that reminds you of that family reunion back in ’74, or your great auntie that lives out in Alabama.”

The Dime Bag (lion’s mane nuggets), candied yams, and baked macaroni & cheeze Credit: Haris Qureshi

Some of the standout dishes include the oyster and lion’s mane mushrooms, which come fried in Rison’s special batter that he brags is the exact same recipe that his mom used when he was a child. The lion’s mane mushrooms are presented like nuggets, while you can get an oyster mushroom sandwich that’s essentially an elevated fried chicken sandwich. If you want the real old-school experience, order the bucket, which comes fast-food style with fried oyster mushrooms along with fries, rolls, and some different housemade sauces. 

The brisket and burnt ends are made from shiitake mushrooms and were even requested by Billie Eilish and her team when the famously vegan popstar performed at Moody Center this past year. A few years ago, in a collaboration with Google Maps, Eilish named her favorite vegan restaurants from around the world; Community was one of the only Texas locations she mentioned.

Community is known for its soul food aesthetic, and it really shines through in its sides. The macaroni & cheeze, a recipe that Dotson came up with, is one standout, while the collard greens, candied yams, and cornbread bring back iconic memories of holidays with the fam. 

Rison boasts, “The way I make that cornbread is different. I had a guy yesterday who said, ‘I love my mom, man, but your cornbread is better than my mom’s cornbread.’” I don’t know if my mom has ever made cornbread (no shade, Ma) so I’d have to agree with his friend on that. The restaurant’s banana pudding is another fire take on a Southern classic. 

Community Taproom is open in the same building that once held the Beer Plant, the vegan gastropub that closed at the end of 2024. The takeover comes as no surprise to anybody who knows the Tarrytown Shopping Center’s landlord: Jeanne Crusemann Daniels, a vegan and animal rights activist who made waves over 20 years ago by banning businesses that she deemed harmful to animals from setting up shop there. With fellow esteemed local vegan restaurant Fabrik now set to open in the same plaza, it’s only a matter of time before her vision to turn the strip into a center of vegan culture for West Austin comes to fruition.

Although Rison, Dotson, and chef Kevin Rowe are pushing out great food, they realize that their purpose is bigger than that. “When we’re finishing up the shot clock, and we’re going through what our life was about, we’re not thinking about any of the material bullshit,” Rison waxes. “We’re gonna be laying there thinking of the people we love, the experiences we had, and what type of impact we were gonna give. That’s what’s going to come through our mind as things start to fade to black. I want to give those [moments] to people, but I also want to be a part of them.”

If love is the secret ingredient at Community Kitchen, then all should be fair as you dine on their vegan fare. 

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