🤖 Cowboy robots in Austin?

🍑 Need a New Recipe for Summer?

Doesn’t peach pudding sound so good? What about a margarita pie? I’m about to make every recipe on this summer potluck-picnic-cookout list. [Texas Monthly]

🤖 Cowboy Robots Hit Austin

The future is here and it’s dressed in a cowboy hat. A human-esque robot named Jake has been doing a training run in Austin, jogging through streets and talking to people. [City Cast Austin 🎧]

💡 2 Roads Get Lighting Upgrades

McNeil Drive and Bluff Springs Road, two Austin roads that are a part of the city’s high-injury network due to their amount of serious and fatal crashes, recently received brighter and improved lighting. [CBS Austin]

♿ City Needs Volunteers To Keep People out of ADA Spaces

Looking for a volunteer opportunity? The city needs help issuing warnings and citations to vehicles parked illegally in Americans with Disabilities Act-designated parking spots. [KVUE]

It’s no wonder Zach Theatre extended its run of “Waitress.”

Originally slated to run through July 13, the theater added two weeks to the show’s run due to popular demand. The musical follows Jenna, a waitress at a pie shop, upon finding out she’s pregnant by her violent, manipulative, doofus of a husband, Earl. Singer Sara Barreilles wrote the music and lyrics for the show, which is based on the 2007 movie of the same name.

Zach Theatre’s rendition of the Tony-nominated show will devastate you, make you laugh and blush, and, of course, have you craving pie. Austinite Leslie McDonel stars as Jenna and she is magnificent.

McDonel feels somehow familiar even if you’ve never seen her perform, and at every moment – when she feels trapped with her husband, when she dreams of a way to truly happy life via her creative pie recipes, and as she falls in love – you root and root and root for her Jenna.

Zach Theatre’s Topfer stage has you so close to the actors, too, that you may feel like you could just reach out and give McDonel’s Jenna a much-needed hug. The supporting cast provided essential laughs and comfort throughout the night in between volatile relationship moments between Jenna and Earl.

In between raunchy displays and goofy songs about peeing on a pregnancy test, you’ll find yourself in the middle of perhaps a top-10-best-song-ever-written about yearning and love: “When He Sees Me.” The song is sung by the character of Dawn, a nerdy fellow waitress who has never dated before. Lyrics include: “What if when he sees me/ I like him and he knows it?/ What if he opens up a door/ And I can't close it?” Catherine Roddey’s Dawn does the song justice, bringing the right amount of geeky flair.