Allens sparks Austin boot battles
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Allens Boots and Tecovas sit side by side on South Congress. Photo: Asher Price/Axios
Pull on your boots and buckle up your belts — Austin's Western wear wars are now at full tilt.
What's happening: At a pop-up shop in costumier Lucy in Disguise's old spot, venerated South Congress boot emporium Allens is casting shade on next-door neighbor Tecovas with cutting messages pasted in their windows.
- "Allens Boots is still family owned. No PE funding here," reads one sign, an apparent reference to the tens of millions of dollars of private equity money funding the expansion of Tecovas, now with 32 locations across the country.
- "Twice the boot, half the price of the other guys," reads another, with an arrow pointing to Tecovas.
What they're saying: "We just thought it was funny," Blake Abbott, director of retail at Allens, tells Axios. "We value ourselves as the iconic destination for cowboy boots in Austin and the Austin original."
- He said he hasn't heard from Tecovas about the signs.
The other side: Tecovas did not reply to interview requests from Axios.
The intrigue: Both Allens and Tecovas are Austin-based.
- Allens, distinctive for the big red boot above its entrance, has been around since 1977.
- Paul Hedrick, who grew up in Dallas, launched Tecovas in 2015 as a Warby Parker-like mishmash of online and brick-and-mortar shops.
Perhaps the Austin boot wars were inevitable.
- At least five high-end boot retailers are operating within several blocks of each other, vying for the wallets of Austin tourists, bachelor(ette) partygoers and convention attendees who want to bring that very special something back from Texas.
Yes, but: Businesses often benefit from clustering — think Silicon Valley.
- Weekend visitors to Austin are drawn to South Congress because of the mass of trendy shops.
By the numbers: With a single pair of new boots starting in the low three-figures, the global Western boots market is worth more than $250 million, per Future Market Insights.
The bottom line: There are plenty of boots for everyone, on and off South Congress — including for the California tech bros newly moved to Austin who are buying boots as a rite of passage.
- "People are moving from L.A., and the first thing they do is they go to Maufrais and get a Stetson, they go to Tecovas and get boots," Austin filmmaker Stephen Billick told the New Yorker's Rachel Monroe in 2021.