Have you managed to trek out to the Cedar Park area and been to the new expansion of business/community/outdoor mall/movie theaters?  If you head down 183A towards 1431 or you take 35 to 1431 you’ll come across this huge area that has been recently developed over the past year and is still being worked on.  Seton just finished another hospital/medical center and there is a movie theater that was put in.  The only thing so far that has opened and closed was a Circuit City.  Heck it seems like as soon as they opened it they turned around and closed it.   The expansion in this area has been phenomenal,  in part to the addition of the new Metro Rail Train that is going in  – the whole Leander and Cedar Park area are very excited at the growth and the ability to create these Transit Oriented Developments (TODs).

Anyway 2 new places have recently opened that are not native to Texas.  One is Carl’s Jr which comes from California.   The other is a bit closer to home so to speak and that’s Freddy’s Frozen Custard.  Freddy’s comes from Wichita Kansas.    I’ve put the video about Freddy’s below – its pretty cool.

As far as how both these new places are:  Very good. The  custard at Freddy’s was excellent and I tried a Western Burger at Carl’s and it too was very good(not as good as Mighty Fine or Huts mind you).   Freddy’s directly competes with Steak and Shake but I find both Carls and Freddy’s to taste better than Steak and Shake.  (Which, in case your wondering, is also located on 1431 – but near the IKEA.)

Now what sets these places apart is the great service.  I think we’ll continue to see more “in-store” service and more friendly “Hi Welcome to ‘X’ location” as studies have shown that people are more likely to return if you treat them nice.. wow, who would have thought about that?  The key is offering decent wages and teaching your employees to learn to respect the customers regardless if they are flipping burgers or not.  Both Freddy’s and Carl’s Jr. have “Staff” that walk around and bring you your food order and then even pick up your tray and trash it for you.   Not bad for fast food.  Both places have friendly, trying hard to keep smiling employees (we’ll see how long it lasts),  that are excited about the new locations.

If you’re in the area and make the trek out to Cedar Park I suggest you check out both places you might be in for a surprise.

Follow up, if you’re interseted in checking out the higher-class places check out the Blog “This is Life in Austin” with a review of Hayashi which is located in the same area.  Lyssa is a bit more critical of the Cedar Park area than I am..but ya’ know it’ll all be “Austin” one day.

Tags: Carls, cedar park, food, Freddys, TOD
Posted in Austin Links, Life | 13 Comments »

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at 2:28 pm and is filed under Austin Links, Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.