Backing our Beliefs: Luck’s Impact at the 2025 Texas Food & Wine Alliance Gala
Photos by Jasmin Porter
We’ve always liked being the ones to set the stage, or in this case, the table, then steppin’ back. Nights like these let folks in our state's culinary scene do even more of what they’re already doing so well.
On December 11, the Texas Food & Wine Alliance gathered its community at Vuka North Loop for its annual gala, an evening that quietly marked a milestone. This year, the Alliance awarded a record $183,000 in grants, the largest distribution in its history, supporting chefs, farmers, purveyors, and nonprofit projects shaping the future of food across Texas.
For Luck Reunion, it was another reminder that the work we do at the ranch doesn’t stop at the gate.
The events we hold throughout the year, matched up with our first-rate sponsors, allow us to fund grants like these. Our dinners, festival, and community gatherings turn good intentions into real dollars. Our annual Potluck, hosted through the Luck Family Foundation, is part of that ecosystem. A long table shared meal… funds raised for food education and access, redistributed to the people doing the work.
This gala was just another way we get to share the luck.
The evening itself was refreshingly straightforward. No excess. No ego. Just a small team, an all-volunteer board, and a room full of people who care deeply about where food comes from and who has access to it.
We caught up with some Luck Family. Mercado Sin Nombre, a grant recipient of ours in 2024 and officially Michelin-recommended as of this year, was serving up coffee and pastries. Gotta love a full-circle moment. When you support the right people, it keeps showing up in rooms like this.
This year, Luck Reunion sponsored two Texas Food & Wine Alliance grants, both aligned with our focus on food education, access, and long-term stewardship.
The first recipient, Molino Olōyō, out of Dallas, TX, was awarded $25,000, $20,000 of that from the Luck Family Community Builders Grant.
Molino Olōyō, centered around modern Mexican heritage, is opening a neighborhood restaurant in Dallas this spring, built around regenerative farming, heirloom corn varietals, and ingredients sourced across Texas and Mexico. The grant supports essential equipment for their tortilla and nixtamal program: connecting soil to corn, corn to table, and table to community. We like the sound of that.
Beyond daily service, Molino Olōyō plans to host community workshops at their farm and create training opportunities for culinary students, keeping knowledge and tradition moving onward and outward.
Our next recipient, Hot Spell Farm in Elgin, TX, was awarded $22,500, $20,000 of that from Luck for Food Education & Access.
Hot Spell Farm is community-driven to its core. Built around land stewardship, volunteer farmers, and food access, they grow with the goal of giving food away alongside selling it.
The grant funds a new tractor, replacing a borrowed 1970s John Deere that breaks down as often as it runs. Reliable equipment means expanded capacity for their CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Program, and more “solidarity shares” provided at no cost. It's actually pretty important to have a tractor that starts when it's supposed to...and we can't wait to see the impact it will have. And the impact this team will get to make with it.
Texas Food & Wine Alliance exists to strengthen the people and projects that keep our food system evolving: farms, sourcers, purveyors, and educators working in communities large and small. It’s a mission we recognize immediately because it mirrors our own.
Luck Reunion has always believed that good experiences can, and should, fuel something bigger than a good time. Supporting Texas Food and Wine Alliance is not a sponsorship checkbox for us. It’s baked into who we are.
We’re grateful to stand alongside an organization that keeps the focus where it belongs: on the work, the land, and the people willing to tend both.
Until the next one.
