There's an App for Perot

Perot Museum unveils fancy new app to enhance interactive visitor experience

The Perot Museum of Nature and Science has been focused on interactivity and technology since the moment it opened in December 2012. Never one to rest on its laurels, the museum is set to introduce a new technological way to interact with exhibits.

Thanks to a three-year partnership with Samsung, visitors to the museum can soon check out one of more than 500 Galaxy tablets featuring activities and games tied to certain exhibits . Initially, the featured exhibits include the Alamosaurus on the fourth floor, the Extreme Earth area on the third floor and the Human Body exhibit on the second floor.

Each stop has multiple activities that allow visitors to gain a deeper understanding of what they're seeing. Some make use of the tablet's camera to take pictures of the exhibit, including one where you take a picture of your own head and then drag your skull out of your face. Others are games of sorts, letting visitors do things like create their own earthquakes or play around with weather variables to see how each affects the world.

The museum envisions adding more exhibits to the app in the coming months and years. The app also contains a visitors guide giving detailed information about the museum, including a nice interactive 3D map showing all five levels, allowing guests to easily find their location and plot their way around the building. The app is currently available in both English and Spanish, and the museum will likely add more languages in the near future.

Additionally, anyone with an Android phone or tablet can download a separate app that replicates the virtual visitors guide available on the museum's tablets. The full in-museum app may some day become available for personal download, but only the visitors guide is available for now. The museum plans to add an iPhone app in the next six months or so.

The tablets will be available to check out free of charge starting Thanksgiving weekend for Perot Museum members and in early December for the general public. The museum will limit the tablets to one per family to try to ensure as many visitors as possible get to experience the new innovation.

The Perot Museum of Nature and Science will soon allow visitors to check out tablets.

Photo courtesy of Perot Museum of Nature and Science

The Perot Museum of Nature and Science will soon allow visitors to check out tablets.

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SWEET comeback

DFW developers rescue legendary Texas candy brand from closing

Courtesy of Lammes Candies

Lammes Candies’ neon lamb sign announces the Austin candy maker’s return after it appeared to be closing for good.

A Fort Worth-based hospitality duo has stepped in to rescue one of Texas' oldest and most beloved candy brands.

Austin's Lammes Candies looked like it had reached the end of its 141-year run in April, when the confectionery announced it would close. But its death was short-lived.

Craig Cavileer and Kayla Wilkie-Kinne of Fort Worth's Delightful Development Co., known for leading the revival of the historic Fort Worth Stockyards, have acquired Lammes in partnership with the Lammes Candies family.

Craig Cavileer and Kayla Wilkie-Kinne of Fort Worth-based Delightful Development Co.Photo courtesy of Lammes Candies

The Lamme family will remain involved in the transition and preservation of the company’s recipes and traditions, according to a release. The first sweets are already on their way back: Sherbet Mints, Longhorns, and Texas Chewie Pecan Pralines in legacy boxes.

“Our vision isn’t to change what Lammes Candies is known for,” Wilkie-Kinne said in the announcement of the sale. “It’s to bring back the legacy recipes, traditions and heritage that made Lammes so special for 141 years.”

For now, Lammes’ return is happening solely online. A separate Austin developer purchased the former Lammes building this spring.

Preorders opened September 29, with nationwide shipping set to begin November 1. A fuller relaunch is planned for spring 2027, although no brick-and-mortar plans have been announced yet. Texans will be able to buy products from retail locations around the state.

Lammes’ holiday Sherbet Mints are among the first sweets returning in a limited legacy-box run.Photo courtesy of Lammes Candies

For generations of customers, Lammes was tied not just to candy, but to holiday gift boxes, Valentine’s chocolate-covered strawberries, chewy pralines, and the familiar candy cane pole outside its Airport Boulevard shop.

Lammes’ history began in downtown Austin. David T. Lamme Sr. opened his first candy shop at Eighth and Congress in 1885, later moving to 919 Congress and establishing the Red Front Candy Shop. The company’s chewy pecan pralines date to the 1890s, when Lamme used pecans from trees along the Colorado River. The lamb logo was adopted so customers would know how to pronounce the family name.

Over the decades, Lammes grew from a downtown candy shop into one of Austin’s most recognizable legacy businesses. Its Airport Boulevard factory opened in 1956, marked by the neon lamb sign and striped candy cane pole. Three generations of the Lamme family ran the business there.

Although the brand is most closely associated with Austin, where it maintained its production facilities and retail stores, the pralines and other candies are widely available at spots like Spec's, Walmart, and Central Market throughout Dallas-Fort Worth.

Cavileer and Wilkie-Kinne headed the modern redevelopment of the Fort Worth Stockyards, including Mule Alley and Hotel Drover. Delightful Development has also purchased the historic Williamson County Jail in Georgetown, another landmark property being considered for adaptive reuse. Their new company was founded in 2025 to develop hospitality destinations and build on legacy brands in Texas.

“Lammes Candies is more than a confection and candy company,” Wilkie-Kinne says in the release. “It’s a significant piece of Texas history that Craig and I will honor, preserve and celebrate with future generations of Texans and customers around the country.”

Lammes Christmas and Easter Sherbet Mints will be available at select Cracker Barrel Old Country Store locations nationwide. Details on future restocks and new releases have not yet been announced. Updates will be posted at lammes.com and on Instagram.

candy desserts hotel drover mule alley openings reopenings