Haupt - Historic Austin Restaurants: Capital Cuisine Through the Generations

Published by American Palate

A Division of The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2013 by Melanie Haupt, PhD

All rights reserved

Photos by Dena Childs unless otherwise noted.

First published 2013

e-book edition 2013

ISBN 978.1.62584.578.8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Haupt, Melanie.

Historic Austin restaurants : capital cuisine through the generations / Melanie Haupt, PhD.

pages cm

print edition ISBN 978-1-62619-123-5 (pbk.)

1. Restaurants--Texas--Austin--History. 2. Austin (Tex.)--Social life and customs. I. Title.

TX907.3.T42A974 2013

647.9576431--dc23

2013037065

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am so grateful to my commissioning editor, Becky LeJeune, for reaching out to our community and for her encouragement of this project. Many thanks to Project Editor Ryan Finn for his kind and patient treatment of my manuscript. Thank you to The History Press for giving me the opportunity to tell these stories.

As I demonstrate in this book, community is everything in Austin, and I couldnt have made this book nearly as interesting without input from MM Pack, Rachel Feit, Mick Vann, Gardner Selby, Tom Selby, Meredith McCree, Dee and Gary Kelleher, Pete Vonder Haar, Katie Brown, Amy Moore Hufford, Hoover Alexander, Mike Miller, Stephanie McClenny, Don Graham, Deana Saukam, Paul Qui, Ned Elliott, Wayne Allen Brenner, Don Gonyea, Owen Egerton, Kate Payne, Cynthia Smith McCollum, Bill Childs, Laura Stromberg Hoke and Tiffany Harelik. Thank you to everyone who agreed to be interviewed for this project; it is richer for your voices in these pages. Thank you, John Anderson, for generously sharing your photos with me.

Liz Dillon, thank you for your transcription services. Julie Remde, you were absolutely indispensable in your role as reader, and I am deeply grateful, especially since you alone had to suffer through my congested, overwrought sentences.

Dena Childs, your talent behind the lens takes my breath away. I am forever indebted to you for giving so much of your time, energy and spare calories in shooting the beautiful images between these covers.

Virginia Wood, your knowledge of Austins food and restaurant scene is staggering and has served as a valuable resource. Thank you so much for all of your insight, information and guidance.

Sally Miculek, thanks for being my person. Matt, thank you for your patience and encouragement. I picked a winner when I married you. Harrison and Laurel, lets go to Disneyland.

INTRODUCTION

When I set out to write this book, my intention was to build on an idea borne of a series of high-spirited conversationsusually over a dish of ice cream or a basket of fried foodwith my friend and Austin food blogger, Kathryn Hutchison. She and I plotted out a plan for a blog dedicated to documenting iconic Austin restaurants and dive bars with an eye toward preserving the experience of some of our favorite Austin landmarks before they were lost to the inevitable march of time.

Unfortunately, life intervened, and we never got the project off the ground, despite our initial enthusiasm for the idea. But the more I thought about it, the more compelled I was to dig into the history behind the storied Austin eateries Id seen come and go over the years. And the more I dugincluding researching historic and iconic restaurants and collecting interviews with local chefs, restaurateurs, historians and Austin residentsthe more I realized that the history of Austin restaurants is, in many ways, the history of Austin itself.

When people ask me to describe this book, I tell them that it is a cultural history of Austin told through its restaurants. Today, Texass capital city has proudly staked its claim as the seat of innovative culinary movements, but Austins evolving food culture mirrors the transformations taking place in the citys broader culture. Examining Austins iconic restaurants through the lens of the historical moments from which they emerged, I trace the arc of Austins rich (and sometimes troubled) history and the cultural flows that inform the citys complex cultural identity.

For example, establishments like Scholz Garten and Ciscos speak to Austins position as the seat of legislative power in Texas and to the fact that the real wheeling and dealing is often done over a pitcher of Shiner Bock or a plate of cheese enchiladas. Austins position as the home of the University of Texass flagship campus also means that generations of alumni have fond memories of their favorite undergraduate watering holes. Reminiscences of late-night veggie baskets and milkshakes at Players (a site currently hounded by developers threatening to use eminent domain to claim for their own) or a leisurely afternoon of coffee and people-watching at the late, lamented Les Amis caf help to illustrate the cultural and historical importance of these restaurants to a city immersed in UT culture.

At the same time, the rise to prominence of long-established fine dining establishments steeped in southern gentility like Green Pastures, with its rolling acreage populated by albino peacocks, remind Austinites of Texass antebellum past alongside a booming barbecue culture with roots in the states once-mighty cotton industry. Meanwhile, that same barbecue culture finds itself evolving as the east side, the area of the city designated for African Americans per the 1928 city plan, gentrifies, and pitmasters like the now nationally known Aaron Franklin take over restaurant spaces once occupied by African American barbecue joints.

Because this is a cultural history and not an encyclopedia, this is not an exhaustive accounting of every restaurant that ever opened its doors for business in Austin. There are, necessarily, omissions, and I apologize to anyone who is disappointed not to find their favorite childhood restaurant mentioned in these pages.

As I conducted my research, I came to appreciate in a much richer sense just how precisely the food scene is interconnected with other aspects of Austins culture, from the annual ebb and flow of students in and out of the city to how the music industry helps shape consumer tastes and trends when it comes to dining out. When you look at this citys restaurants in a broader context, you can see the interplay among the various quarters of industry and how they affect one another. The DNA strands come into relief and help paint a more vivid picture of the citys dining-out ecosystem.

I also discoveredand hope to make clear in these pages through a combination of analysis and oral historiesthat the links between the community and the restaurant industry in Austin are crucial to any restaurants success. Sure, a restaurant can have delicious food, but if a restaurateur wants to make a lasting impact on Austinites, he or she must provide something to the members of the community that they value. For some people, that is clear sight lines to the nearest high-definition television when the Longhorns are playing. For others, its a sense of history and connection to the past. Still others value the places where they can celebrate their community and family ties while also enjoying high-quality, expertly prepared food. But most of all, I hope to demonstrate for readers that if you look closely, Austins restaurant culture at any given moment in time mirrors Austins sense of itself as a city.