Even though it’s been only a few weeks, the wait for the new Warby Parker store on South Congress, Austin’s first, has seemed interminable—especially after the company’s mobile store, The Warby Parker Class Trip bus, skedaddled from Austin earlier this year following a two-year tenure.
Fans of its fetching, of-the-people eyewear won’t have to wait much longer, huzzah. The storefront at 1317 South Congress Avenue opens this Saturday, August 27, at 11 a.m.
The company, which started as an online-only business touting retro-fashionable frames at reasonable prices, attentive customer service, and social consciousness (it donates a pair of frames with every purchase), now has more than 30 retail stores nationwide.
In addition to its trademark eye frames, the South Congress store will have a dedicated writing space for the truly amazing local nonprofit Austin Bat Cave, which helps kids aged 6–18 develop their creative and expository writing skills for free, in addition to publishing anthologies, holding readings, and sometimes inspiring music to set their words to.
Inspired by classic libraries, the space will have book displays (with books chosen by Austin Bat Cave), leather seating, a custom brass chandelier, suspended globe lighting, and white terrazzo floors. There will also be a reading patio.
The store’s design also features indigo-dyed bandanas, produced in collaboration with Austin-based Land Design Studio, hand-dyed by Maura Ambrose of Folk Fibers and hand-printed by local Bearded Lady Studio.
The SoCo store will also have one of Curbed’s favorite things—a map, this one of the best places to sit and read a book in the neighborhood, illustrated New York-based artist Jason Polan.
The store will also have an edition of Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, produced as part of the Recovering the Classics program with Austin-based artist, designer, and writer Bryan Keplesky exclusively for the South Congress store.
And if all that isn’t enough excitement for your average cool nerd to deal with, the company has just announced that it will open a second Austin location at Domain Northside this fall.