River Oaks’ favorite gourmet grocer is switching things up with a new name and a second location. Tres Market is now known as The Cottage Grocery, but that’s only one of many changes for the five-year old market, bakery, and cafe.
The rebrand comes after founder Julie Rhyne and her business partner Jeannine Holland decided to end their partnership and go their separate ways. While the name may be new, Rhyne’s recipes are the same. The store offers about 450 items, all of which are prepared fresh on site and are available to-go in the restaurant’s refrigerated cases, along with specialty items, wine, and more. Customers have come to rely on The Cottage Grocery for heat-and-serve soups, salads, and entrees that range from roast chicken to pastas to pork tenderloin, meatloaf, and more.
Although the store has only been open for about five years, Rhyne’s history in the business goes back to 1989, when she started a catering company from her home kitchen. Things got bigger when she and her husband moved to Houston. The store took off during the early days of the pandemic, when nearby families turned to then-Tres Market for restaurant quality meals they could heat up at home. Now the store’s 30 cooks produce more than 2,000 containers of food daily, along with cookies, cakes, and other sweets for the store’s bakery.
A Family Affair
Rather than operate The Cottage Grocery on her own, Rhyne is now working with her daughter, Lauren Van Wagenen, and her son, Taylor Rhyne, as well as their spouses. The new name is an homage to the business’ location — Rhyne refers to the building adjacent to the market as ‘The Cottage’ — as well as a nod to the family’s preference for taking vacations to cozy places that offer comfort and respite without being too fancy.
“When we go on vacation, the whole family goes — my kids, their spouses, the grandkids, the whole fam-dam-ily,” she tells CultureMap. “We love going to places that are laidback and relaxed. They all have a common theme. You walk in and realize they get it. It’s how people would spend all their time if they could.”
Coming to Dallas
Van Wagenen, an accountant who worked in finance for more than a decade, will take the lead on the store’s new Dallas location that’s expected to open this summer. She’s already made her mark on the business by creating barcodes for all of the store’s prepared items. The simple change cut check out times down from five minutes to 30 seconds, she says.
Both Rhyne and Van Wagenen are excited about the upcoming Dallas location, which will be located in the Highland Park neighborhood at 4919 McKinney. They see a lot of similarities between Highland Park and the store’s original location in River Oaks.
“The site itself is kind of an island where three roads intersect,” Van Wagenen says. “You can’t miss us. When we were looking, we wanted to be in Highland Park. It’s similar to River Oaks — tree-lined streets, a lot of walkability.”
Just as Rhyne’s constant presence at the River Oaks location assures customers that an owner is keeping an eye on the business, Van Wagenen and her husband David plan to be fixtures at the Dallas store. As in Houston, everything will be prepared fresh at the store from Rhyne’s recipes.
“It’s a two-story, cottage-looking house with these huge high-rises around it,” Rhyne adds. “Everyone’s going to be looking down at us, and we’ll be out there waving cookies at them.”
Once Dallas is open and running smoothly, Rhyne and her son Taylor, an IT specialist, will begin looking for a second Houston location. More details on those plans will be revealed in the future.
Photo by Julie Soefer
Tres Market is now known as The Cottage Grocery.
