Tech Bro of the Week: The Man Who Moved from SF to Reinvent the Kolache

All characters in Tech Bro of the Week are fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or fermenting proprietary dough in a garage in East Austin, is purely coincidental.

Jayden Morsch relocated from San Francisco to Austin in 2021, lured by the promise of no state income tax, a "vibrant food scene," and the ability to use the word "founder" without anyone within earshot physically cringing. Within six months, he discovered the kolache. Within seven, he decided it needed saving.

His company is called Kolache Haus. The umlaut is silent. The audacity is not.

"It's not a pig-in-a-blanket," Jayden said, unprompted, while we sat in his East Austin test kitchen — a converted shipping container with Edison bulbs and a $12,000 Italian stand mixer. "It's a deconstructed Czech heritage protein vessel."

He has never been to West, Texas. He has never been to any Czech-Texan bakery that opens at 5 a.m. and closes when the kolaches run out. He has, however, read four articles about kolaches on Eater and watched a YouTube documentary narrated by a man in Portland.

Here's what Kolache Haus is offering the world:

• A "Signature Collection" featuring flavors like miso-glazed pork belly, harissa lamb with pickled fennel, and something called "The VC" — a truffle egg kolache that costs $14 and comes in a box designed by the same firm that did Glossier's packaging.
• A subscription model: $45/month for four kolaches delivered to your door, or $89/month for the "Founder's Tier," which includes a tote bag.
• A pop-up at the Domain — excuse us, the "innovation corridor" — every Saturday, where Jayden personally explains the lamination process to people who just wanted a sausage roll.

Czech Stop in West, Texas sells a sausage and cheese kolache for $2.75. It comes in a paper bag. There is no tote. It is the best kolache you will ever eat. Jayden has described Czech Stop as "a solid proof of concept."

When we mentioned that kolaches have been a staple of Central Texas for roughly a century, Jayden nodded and said, "Right, but nobody's really branded it." We excused ourselves to stare at the wall for five minutes.

Jayden's Instagram has 11,000 followers, 4,000 of whom appear to be food bloggers who will eat anything presented on a wooden board. His Yelp reviews are polarized: half say "incredible reinvention," half say "I paid $14 for a kolache the size of my thumb."

He is currently in talks with the AI queso guy about a "Czech-Mex fusion collab." He has drafted a pitch deck titled "The Kolache Economy." It is thirty-two slides. Slide nine is just a photo of dough with the caption "This is the future."

We wished him well. Then we drove to Hruska's, bought a dozen for $18, and didn't think about lamination once. If you've never had a Lone Star at a real bar alongside a gas station kolache, you haven't lived.