" It's those homey little places that give a city its flavor "

COMMENTARY: ARNOLD GARCIA
It's those homey little places that give a city its flavor

Arnold García Jr., EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR, AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Sunday, October 01, 2006

I spent a lot of hours in the old Cisco's restaurant talking to Rudy Cisneros, the joint's late and legendary owner. I played poker in there and, needless to say, I had a few drinks there. I even ate there on occasion.
Right around the corner from Cisco's East 6th and Comal streets location was the Back Door, which had a relatively small but fiercely devoted clientele. Former state Rep. Lena Guerrero had the best summary of the Back Door's appeal: "It's like going home for lunch."
That it was. Odilon "Dave" Resendez and his wife, Susie, ran the quintessential mom-and-pop operation. Pop did the cooking, and mom ran the cash register.
The food was excellent and the atmosphere humble but clean. Willie Nelson was a regular at the Back Door, as were Darrell Royal, Earl Campbell and other notables from the business and political worlds. People seldom bothered the celebs because it just didn't seem right to get between them and their food.
The food, though, was a secondary attraction. Rudy was the draw at Cisco's. He died in 1995, but was such a presence that I can still hear him and see the sparkle from that little diamond stickpin in his white shirt. The guy was a riot, a Chicano George Burns, complete with the cigar and more stories than an O. Henry anthology. At the Back Door, the draw was an easy, homey atmosphere.
They were places that nourished the soul as well as the body. They weren't for everybody, but then again, they didn't aspire to be.
Places like the Back Door — lamentably closed long ago — and the still operating Cisco's are examples of restaurants that serve as a community's social crossroads. It is in these kinds of places where social and income stratas compress. Such places are in no way unique to Austin. Every city has them, but we capital city types are fiercely devoted to ours.
Hotel magnate J. Willard Marriott discovered that when he tangled with Cynthia and Lidia Pérez, the sisters who give Las Manitas, at 211 Congress Ave., its name ("little sisters" is the literal translation).
The sisters complement one another. Cynthia is the animated one, the public face and voice of the restaurant. And she's tougher than two battalions of the 82nd Airborne. Lidia is quieter, but both are devoted to their place and, their regulars are devoted to them.
You can't buy that kind of loyalty with a multimillion dollar public relations budget because the sisters are the heiresses of, and keepers of the flame for, all the Cisco's and Back Doors anywhere and everywhere.
They are the restaurants that by force of the owners' personalities became more than just some place to eat, pay up and leave, and that's what makes the Las Manitas story a little bigger than your average economic development-meets-tradition tale. Places like Las Manitas are disappearing faster than your colorful courtroom lawyer types — victims of changing economy, times and tastes. Those places are the intransients in a transient world, and we probably won't realize how special they were until after they're gone.
You probably know that Las Manitas might have to move to make room for a multimillion-hotel project. If you know that, you know that the sisters aren't going without a fight, and to that fight they are bringing a lot of well-connected friends. If Austin is as smart as it thinks it is, we'll figure out a way to accommodate a chain hotel without relegating Las Manitas to a strip mall — not that the sisters would go there.
Those who view the world through the lens of an economic realist will wonder why a rinky-dink family-owed restaurant should impede a huge project that promises to create employment and generate tons of revenue. Marriott wondered that aloud last week and has been trying to reel that ill-advised sentiment back in ever since.
There are lots of Marriotts. Places like Las Manitas, on the other hand, aren't easy to find in a world whose economy and tastes demand conformity in both cuisine and atmosphere.
By the way, the hotelier's crack opened the kitchen door for Cynthia to serve Marriott an off-the-menu item: his words. Apology notwithstanding, Marriott is going to be chewing on that for a while — commas, periods and all.
Bon appetit.

agarcia@statesman.com; 445-3667
source: Austin American Statesman