Tecovas boots are displayed on two walls in the main room at the Tecovas South Congress location on Thursday, Sep. 25, 2025 in Austin.
Aaron E. Martinez/Austin American-Statesman
I love a cowboy boot as much as the next Texas-born gal. I’ve got three pairs of Tecovas, a vintage pair of Justins I scored at Texas Thrift and an ancient pair of impossibly pointy boots I bought in college for football games. They hurt like hell, but they’re pretty.
Few afternoons are better than wandering through Tecovas with a cold drink in hand, surrounded by the smell of fresh leather.
Article continues below this ad
But there’s something afoot on South Congress. In just a few years, the street has gone from having a couple of dedicated cowboy boot stores to feeling like one giant Western wear showroom. At some point, the question stopped being whether another boot shop would open and became: How many does one street need?
Allens Boots is one of several boot sellers on South Congress Avenue.
Beck Andrew Salgado/American-Statesman
Allen’s Boots has anchored the corner of South Congress Avenue and Monroe Street since 1977, and it’s an Austin institution. It’s where I tell visitors to go if they want to try on Texas. Heritage Boot Co. opened two blocks away in 2005. For nearly 15 years, those two stores largely had the market to themselves, joined by vintage shops and a handful of retailers that happened to sell boots.
Then, in 2019, Tecovas moved in.
Article continues below this ad
Now, if you’ve lived in Austin longer than about five minutes, you know South Congress has transformed over the past decade. Aviator Nation sells California a couple doors down from the Continental Club. A beloved costume shop gave way, in part, to a national running shoe retailer. A quirky embroidery shop became a Hey Dude store. They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.
So no, the growing number of boot stores probably isn’t the biggest thing worth lamenting on South Congress.
Still, it’s a little weird.
Since Tecovas opened, King Ranch Saddle Shop has arrived. Lucchese opened two doors away. Kendra Scott launched Yellow Rose, complete with its own cowboy boots. This year, Ariat opened a storefront. Now Wrangler, Alberta Boot Company and Cody & Sioux are headed to the former Vespaio space.
Article continues below this ad
Yellow Rose by Kendra Scott South Congress flagship location on Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024.
Mikala Compton/American-Statesman
Cowboy boots, of course, aren’t some newly minted Texas symbol. Historians trace the modern cowboy boot to the years after the Civil War, when Texas and Kansas bootmakers designed durable footwear for cattle drives. In 2007, the Texas Legislature made the cowboy boot the official state footwear.
Western wear is also having a moment. Cowboy-inspired fashion has returned to runways. Country music is booming. “Yellowstone” and “Landman” helped make ranch aesthetics aspirational again. It makes perfect sense that retailers want in, especially on one of Austin’s busiest tourist corridors.
But that’s also what feels strange. South Congress isn’t simply adding another boot store. It’s devoting more and more of its storefronts to selling an increasingly polished, increasingly expensive version of Texas.
Article continues below this ad
I’m no boot gatekeeper. Cowboy boots are versatile, durable and, if you buy the right pair, genuinely comfortable. As Skip Hollandsworth wrote in Texas Monthly in 1991, “it is a long-standing tradition in Texas to wear cowboy boots for no practical reason whatsoever.” He’s right. I’m certainly not wearing my cherry-red Tecovas to help my dad feed cows.
A good pair of boots can feel almost as personal as a tattoo. And in an era of disposable online fashion that falls apart after a season, I’d much rather see people buy something well made.
But y’all, this is getting to be a little much.
Beyond the growing lineup of boot stores, South Congress now has multiple custom hat shops. STAG Provisions has an entire Western collection. Vintage stores and boutiques are packed with pearl snaps, belt buckles and well-worn boots.
Article continues below this ad
None of those businesses is inherently the problem. Some are historic Texas brands. Some were born in Austin. Many sell beautiful, well-made things that I would — and do — happily wear. And it’s not about the stores themselves — it’s about what disappeared to make room for all of them.
And that’s what nags at me: South Congress feels a little less like Austin even as it looks more like the postcard version of it. As the street loses the quirky local businesses that gave it character, it gains more places selling that character’s visual shorthand: boots, hats, pearl snaps. It makes South Congress feel increasingly tailored to visitors looking to buy a polished piece of Texas and take it home in a shopping bag.
Maybe that’s the inevitable fate of a street with an Hermès, an Equinox and a Soho House. Every recognizable piece of Texas eventually gets polished, marked up and turned into a retail concept.
Article continues below this ad
Maybe that’s just what South Congress is now.
I only wish there were a little more room left for the Austin that inspired all those boot stores in the first place.