Into The Great Wide Open

In teeny-tiny Talpa, Texas, Rancho Loma, a family-run ranch and restaurant, has been quietly attracting accolades and destination diners. Now its owners are setting their sights on something bigger: revitalizing an entire town 

- Francesca Mari

At the conclusion of a three-hour drive northwest from Austin, through rolling hills of scruff, a renovated 1878 limestone farmhouse materialized at the end of a small dirt road like Oz’s Emerald City: Rancho Loma. I’d been hearing about Robert and Laurie Williamson’s vaunted Friday- and Saturday-only 24-seat restaurant run out of their home for a couple of years, but I’d had to wait for months until my schedule aligned with their six-week waitlist. Now, finally, my boyfriend and I were here, to see firsthand not only how two former commercial filmmakers had managed to create a destination restaurant and inn in the middle of nowhere—with not a day of professional chef, restaurateur, or hotelier experience between them—but also how they are working to remake the nearby town of Coleman into Texas’ next cultural hotspot.