”We don’t need any menus. We know what we have”!
Tourists today in Austin will never learn about or discover the old history of Cisco’s restaurant in East Austin. It has long since been forgotten, but in its heyday, it was one of the most important places to go as a politician. And especially if you were visiting Austin and what he wanted, some really good Mexican or Tex Mex food.
East Austin today has changed dramatically from the. Place it used to be when it was just a humble working-class community. The Lung family early Chinese residents to Texas and Austin lived in East Austin. In 1928, many of the African American communities were consolidated into East Austin. The Mexican American population could also be found in East Austin.
You could also find some seriously good home cooking in East Austin. From barbecue to soul food. the Lung’s Restuarant, to Cisco ‘s and always the good church cooking.
In East Austin, he was known as Father Papa Cisneros to many, but to others he was just Rudy. He came from the family of cooks. His great grandfather was Santa Anna’s cook. And who happened to have invented huevos rancheros? Papa Cisneros Said that his great grandfather ”could make eggs with sauce so hot the troops would storm walls just to use the facilities.”
Rudy’s father was a Baker. Unfortunately, when Rudy was a teenager, his father’s bakery went out of business. To help his father keep baking, Rudy worked three jobs and saved money so that his father could buy back bakery equipment. He was still living above the closed bakery. And every morning before leaving for work for the day, he would make coffee. One day, the men working at the Body Shop across the street from the closed bakery walked over and had coffee with him. Rudy made biscuits and offered them to his guests. The next day, they came back. Not long after, someone gave him a grill to cook eggs. Rudy found a table and sold coffee, eggs and biscuits for 35 cents. And this was the beginning of the famous. Cisco’s Restaurant.
He was one of. Austins, great civic leaders in the Mexican American community. He would randomly pick kids out from East Austin and pay for their education so that they could go to college. He would support them for four years, and when they graduated, he asked only that they in turn give education to someone else who otherwise would be unable to afford it. Few people knew he had done this until after his death, He was not one to bring attention to himself for kindness, he felt it was his responsibility.
EMS and police on duty came and ate for free. On Thanksgiving he opened his doors, and everyone ate for free.
He once said ”I would see these dirty kids, unkempt, with long hair, walk by my restaurant. If I could catch them, I’d yell out to them. Hey, if you go over to Rosie’s and get a haircut, I’ll give you money to go to the movie at the Ritz”. Rosie’s salon was across the street from the restaurant. The Ritz was a movie theater on 6th Street in Austin.
Cisco Restaurant still stands today. It’s a shadow of the political center it once was. Many politicians in the 1960s and 1970s gathered at Cisco’s to eat and talk politics. In fact, LBJ had a hankering for his tamales and had them sent to the White House.
An interesting and little-known fact was when Cisneros was a baby. He had a high fever which made his eyes cross. Kids made fun of him and even after corrective surgery, he had difficulty looking people in the eye.
CISCO’S TODAY
