oye chico: a revelation
austin, texas: our cubano has arrived
Austinites are a fascinatingly territorial bunch. Despite the fact that I’ve resided in and about the Austin area for over twenty years, I don’t claim to be a part of the Austinite clique for two reasons. Firstly, even though I’ve been working in the city for some time, I actually only moved to Austin proper for the first time at the beginning of 2021 and I know how many big city natives feel about suburbanites claiming their zip code. The second (and arguably more notable) reason is that I was actually born in Miami, Florida eight years before my family moved us to Round Rock. Though this time of my life was brief - especially in comparison to the time I’ve spent in Texas - I’ve found that I have some unique cultural roots to contend with in comparison to many of my Austinite peers that came about as a result of the time I spent in Miami.
Unfortunately, my biological father had some demons to wrestle with in regards to his family history and therefore, I didn’t even know that I was Cuban until after I was an adult. Despite this, I have fond memories of chowing down on Cuban sandwiches, arroz con pollo, and platanos as a Miami youth and I frequently find myself nostalgic enough about the food to consider buying a ticket to Miami for some food tourism. I’ve always detested the fact that I can’t get my hands on some high-quality Cuban food here in Austin. Everytime I catch wind of a Cuban spot, I find myself running to try it, only to be met with disappointment when my expectations aren’t met. The Cuban sandwich (or Cubano) in particular has been a real frustrating white whale for me in a town that’s known for hosting such a diverse selection of quality cuisine. With no desire to put down any business that’s made an attempt at my beloved sandwich, I’ll just say that I’ve tried many and been disappointed many times. What presents as a relatively simple staple of Cuban-American cuisine possessing only pressed Cuban bread, mustard, pickles, swiss cheese, ham, and mojo roasted pork is evidently a true challenge in execution for the people of Austin.
After Jon Favreau’s revelatory 2014 film ‘Chef’ that prominently featured cubanos through a borderline pornagraphic lens, there was a surge of chefs attempting to be the first in the city to have a cubano worth talking about, but the only ones who succeeded tragically didn’t survive (RIP Live Oak Market). There was always either dry pork, too liberal of an interpretation of what the ingredients should be, or bread that was too soggy to stomach. Everywhere I looked, only despondency awaited me. I was starting to feel like nostalgia was blinding me and that perhaps this elusive sandwich was just not as good as I remembered.
That was until Oye Chico showed up on the front porch of Better Half this week and proved to me that the impossible could be done by way of a damn near perfect cubano. I caught wind of this soon-to-be explosively popular food trailer the week before last by way of some random tweet that came across my phone and immediately began a heavy bout of anticipation that manifested itself by way of me harassing them on Instagram until they opened. After a week of delays from the originally announced opening day, I lined up early outside Better Half this past Wednesday with my partner and my kids in tow to get my hands on Austin’s latest foray into the cubano. Even if the sandwich was going to leave something to be desired, I was immediately inclined to commit myself to a return visit just based on how fun the space was. Between the pale pink benches sat a semi-covered container pool that I had to stop my fully dressed children from immediately jumping into and on the other side of a nearby fence was the always immaculate patio space shared by Better Half and Holdout Brewing which just screams “gratifying day-drinking spot”.
I walked past all of the tempting distractions and was greeted by a cutesy trailer sporting a neon white smiley face and a letterboard featuring only three items: the cubano, a cafecito, and cafe con leche. I’ve found in life that you can tell a lot about a food truck by how many - or I should say how few - items they carry. The initial interest I had about Oye Chico stemmed from the fact that they were going to open up shop with exactly one food item on the menu and, dear reader, if an establishment only has one item, you know they have the juice.While I waited for my sandwich, I sipped on my cafecito and pondered about how funny it was that even a cuban coffee that consists of just espresso and sugar could be so satisfying, yet so weirdly rare to find properly executed. Through the window of the trailer, I held my breath as I watched operator Carlos Suarez and his partner gracefully dance around each other in preparation of my cubano dreams. When my moment came, I opened up a brown to-go box to reveal a perfectly portioned mojo pork, ham, and swiss sandwich with thick, crunchy center-placed pickles, and mustard between the loving embrace of a crispy cuban loaf.
I was immediately smitten.
From the first bite, I was entranced. I remember only the ferocity in which I was swept up by the emotions that a quality, moist, supple mojo pork can evoke. The crispy cuban bread provided a perfect crunch and a delicate counterbalance to the tender meat. The cheese was perfectly melted, the mustard was spread on generously, and the pickles being perfect in flavor, cut, placement, and textural re-enforcement gave an extra point of finesse to the ensemble. The greatest tragedy that this sandwich fell to was how fast it was gone. Just as quickly as it met my lips, it was gone and I was left wondering if what I had just experienced was an overblown expression of nostalgia for finally having fulfilled my craving for the first decent cubano the city of Austin had to offer or if it was really that good.
I had to find out. So two days later, I visited Oye Chico for a second time to treat my partner and I to another go around for my birthday, this time dressed to enjoy my beer in the pool while we waited. When I arrived around 12:30, I ran into a friend of mine who had stopped in to try the sandwich after hearing me rant and rave about it, but was met with disappointment that they had sold out already; it would seem that the people of Austin had already caught on to the justified hype. But to my benefit (and to my poor dear friend who had to depart for work’s misfortune), the fine proprietors of Oye Chico simply had to go re-up on bread before they could come back and crank out more sandwiches before shutting down at 2 for their regularly scheduled break between services. I was happy to wait and so I did - literally right in front of their window so that I could be the first to get my hands on this sandwich-shaped masterpiece once more. As promised, a perfectly executed cubano was in my hands just a short time later. I made a distinct effort to savor it this time instead of consuming it as ravenously as I did the first time.
I can’t explain it, but it only got better. After churning out several hundred cubanos over the course of their first few days, it would seem like los chicos at Oye Chico were only getting better at this. I’ve since that moment taken every conceivable opportunity to spread the gospel of Oye Chico to anyone who will listen because I need them to be around forever. When (not if) they convert this thing into a brick and mortar, I’ll be the first in line, but I reckon that it’ll be a long one so, if you haven’t made your move to Better Half’s newest patio addition, I wouldn’t waste any time if I were you.
Oye Chico is open at 406 Walsh Street from 9AM to 2PM and 5 PM to 10PM Wednesday through Sunday
For more information, visit their website or follow them on instagram
the dystopian late-night dining experience
what does eating out look like past the hours when anyone cares?
Today feels like a good day to deliver some lighter fare than my usual pessimistic droning so without further ado…
Dear readers, I have a small confession to make.
Though I pride myself on my frequent visitation to the gym, my predilection towards eating chicken and rice at every conceivable opportunity, and an overall lifestyle that lends itself to a long, healthy existence, I too have a weakness: late-night eating. It would be easy to deflect fault; I could very easily blame my regularity towards a 1 AM meal on my job which I regularly don’t depart from until midnight or later. But I would be lying if I didn’t fess up to the simple truth: there’s just something so satisfying about a filling, late-night meal. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not actually one of those health-nuts that rallies against eating past a certain time - I truly don’t care what time myself, or anyone else for that matter, eats. The bigger issue at play here is almost certainly that late-night dining options are generally confined to the most unhealthy shit you can imagine. Let’s be honest: if you’ve made it to fourth-meal, you’re probably not feeling great about the prospect of cooking a full, nutritious meal for yourself either. So what are your options in my beloved city of Austin?
Well, in my experience, it’s kind of slim pickings. This wasn’t always the case before COVID, but a pretty major shift in the ability of restaurants to adequately staff their establishments since then has resulted in more limited hours. Short of Las Cazuelas and Whataburger, you may as well abandon the idea of a restaurant that’s open 24 hours; 24 Diner has become 16 Diner, Kerbey Lane has abandoned their ‘round the clock service, and Tyson’s Tacos is still a horrendously operated restaurant run by a rapacious human being. You may still find some late-night love from Seoulju till 1 AM, but nowadays, the new reality of late-night dining is either food trucks or, my preferred option, bars with restaurants on the inside such as Yellow Jacket Social Club, Frazier’s Long and Low, DelRay Cafe @ Nickel City, or my favorite underdog spot, Thunder Chief @ Lavaca Street Bar on South Lamar. You will never hear me disparage these establishments as they have done right by me on many a night during which my imbibement led me to the call of greasy, soulful bar food.
That said, I’ve recently taken up a somewhat more sober lifestyle for no other reason than to fit into my work shirts a little bit better. Frankly, I really shouldn’t be indulging in this sort of food anyways, but throughout the various peaks and valleys that I’ve experienced in my lifelong journey of attempting to get/remain in shape, I find that compromise and flexibility are two of the most crucial factors to be considerate of. This is so to say that if I’m willing to let my hungry brain indulge in some late-night eats, I should probably make the compromise and not booze it up while doing so. This is where my problem really kicks in with consideration to the fact that when I’m sitting at a bar, I want a goddamn drink and it’s pretty difficult to convince myself not to have that one drink that turns into three or four. It was through this dilemma that I found myself in the car with my partner after midnight, hungry after a long night at work, and unsure what to do about it. It was then that my beloved made a strange, but interesting proposition: “wanna go to IHOP?”
Y’all, in full transparency, I drive past an IHOP every day on my way to work and not once in recent memory had I considered the fact that this establishment is somehow the last bastion of 24/7, sit-down dining in this city. I had been late night once before recently, but that was a part of my efforts to avoid my family on Thanksgiving so I hadn’t even really fully realized that these hours weren’t just a fluke. But hell, I ate plenty of IHOP in my past life so why not give it a go now? I’m pretty acutely aware of the fact that you simply will not have a five star dining experience at 1 AM anywhere, much less an IHOP; I’m more than okay with this for the most part because, let’s face it: I don’t want to work a fucking graveyard shift waiting tables and I can only imagine that the servers doing so regularly will see their disposition wear down over time just as mine would. Who is your target demographic during after-hours? Stoners, teenagers, drunk people, and some combination of the three if I had to take a gander. Does that sound like the ideal clientele to inspire you to get up and after it every night? I’m going to go with a polite “no”. So that said, I went in with some pretty meager expectations.
Despite this, I couldn’t have prepared myself for the dystopian nonsense that I came to witness. My partner and I walked in and were greeted somewhat quickly by a woman in a promotional IHOP/Minions movie tee shirt who was certainly trying her best, but quickly took the opportunity when asked how she was doing to lament about how this was her sixteenth day without a day off which, understandably, led her to a feeling of pure exhaustion. She led us to a four-top booth in the corner which allowed us to have an unobstructed view of more cringey Minions promotional material, a table of three teenagers who were acting like they had all just tried alcohol for the first time, and an incoming parade of no less than twelve Uber Eats drivers coming to pick up orders in the forty-five minutes or so that we sat there. To my right, there was a table pamphlet advertising some sort of crypto-currency promotion that for some reason the executives of IHOP thought was necessary which only fueled my humorous interpretation of my surroundings. With no music playing in the background, we were serenaded by the sounds of the line cooks yelling at each other and the aforementioned teenagers making some inane commentary about whatever drama they were swept up in at the time. Outside, there were a couple of men yelling at each other as if we needed any assistance losing ourselves in the cacophany that we were embedded in at the time. In the private room that every IHOP has for some reason, the two servers on the floor were both on their phones demonstrating their justified apathy towards the strange and uncomfortable environment in the front-of-house. I don’t feel like I need to say this, but obviously if there was a manager of any sort on the clock, they were nowhere to be seen. There was nothing to complain about; I knew what I was signing up for walking in these doors at this hour. But I have to wonder how much about that situation would have been different if there was an employee on the floor whose job it was to give a shit? Maybe I could’ve gotten through my meal without having to watch a teenage girl under the table trying to wrestle her boyfriend’s phone out of his pocket.
But, you know what? I got two protein pancakes, two strips of turkey bacon, potatoes, and some egg whites that were edible after dousing them in hot sauce for $10 which was not only significantly cheaper than a comparable amount of food at a bar, but healthier by a mile. Was it as satisfying? Certainly not, but at this hour, you take what you can get in that department. The two of us departed feeling very strange about the whole thing, but once I got past the stupidity of minions and crypto, not terribly put off from doing it again sometime. The thing that I couldn’t shake, however, was how much this felt like staring into the future. I’ve always imagined that in some not-so-far-away time, cities will continue to diverge into increased disparity between the rich and poor. The areas that we working-class-folk patronize will start to look like the cities in Samurai Jack while the areas the rich live in will just look like progressively gaudier and more decadent versions of what they look like now. Within the walls of our parts of the cities, the places we eat will exude a similar type of anarchic spirit as I saw in the IHOP that day. Is this sort of thing just a calling card of the proletariat? Have I been spoiled by the fancier and more expensive spots in the city that I’ve dined at and worked at into thinking that an air of civility is necessary for a good dining experience? Am I a bougie prude who should view this sort of thing as more normal than I do? Is the after-midnight IHOP dining experience the future of casual dining?
As I consider these questions, I’m enjoying a sandwich at 1 AM in the comfort of my own home. Perhaps the anarchy of late-night dining is a warning to us all that we should be doing more of this and less of that. I think I’ll probably just make other concessions in my life to justify slamming a smash burger and irish nachos at Thunderchief for the most part, but sometimes, I ought to remind myself that I’m not as hoity-toity as I act like I am by putting down some 2 AM pancakes with the common folk. Colloquially, nothing good happens at this hour, but every now and again, you should poke your head out into the world and enjoy the chaos - you might learn something about yourself.
z’tejas and the death of the casual restaurant
enjoy your under $100 meals in austin because they won’t be around forever
I don’t think that I need to tell anyone who lives in Austin that there’s been a rapid growth occurring for years now that’s led to a complete paradigm shift in the culture and ethos of the city at large - if you live here, you feel it with every new condo that pops up, every celebrity and tech billionaire that moves here, and every demoralizing Zillow search you do in some futile attempt to make the dream of owning property here seem like less of a fantasy. In my world, however, there is no greater indication that the soul of the city is changing than what I feel when an institutional bar or restaurant closes. Don’t misunderstand me, not every restaurant closure is a tragedy that deserves to be mourned; for every great restaurant in this city, there are four restaurants that should be condemned - be it by the greater collective of consumers or, more often, by the health department. Though I am prone to these philosophical musings with or without any specific lighting rod to catch my ceaseless stream of opinions, on this specific occasion, we do gather here to mourn the loss of one of the greats.
Friends, today we say goodbye to Z’Tejas.
I know that there are still a couple of Z’Tejas location out there; hell, they’re about to open one in Kyle and they confusingly opened up another one in Avery Ranch across the street from where Moonshine took over the Z'Tejas that used to be there before the company famously plummeted into bankruptcy. But Z’Tejas in its original glory began on West 6th street in Austin, Texas on a strip of land now primarily owned by restaurant titans McGuire Moorman Lambert Hospitality, and it is here that we now see this great loss unfold in front of us. Relatively new owner of the enduring franchise, Randy Cohen, recently announced that due to the relationship between high rent prices on his primo West 6th street real estate and growing cost of overhead in an aging building, that he would be closing the original Z’Tejas location after 33 years in business at some undisclosed time in the next six months.
Now, if you’re anything like me, you may be thinking “how the hell did that old dinosaur even make it this long?” and that’s a great question that I only possess more of a hypothesis about than any evidence backed answer. See, Z isn’t the only Austin restaurant that began in that era that has survived off of the city’s bad habit of making an institution out of anything that has been around long enough to revive any notion of the great original Austin zeitgeist that countless corporations and real estate sharks have been trying desperately to capitalize on for decades. In the wake of COVID, I hired several late-blooming Z defects that told tales of labor abuse and hellish working environments that, assuming some good faith in their accounts, should’ve been enough to justify the end of this restaurant franchise much earlier than the slow burn of “success” in the business world that they continue to enjoy. I could name other restaurants that I feel similarly about, but I will refrain from doing so for the sake of peace keeping with my fellow service industry kinfolk. That said, due to my hyper-specific hospitality career, I have a tennous, but undeniable connection to the charming old relic that is Z’Tejas because I spent nearly a decade working for the man himself: original Z’Tejas executive chef, Jack Allen Gilmore; so one could say this one is a little different for me.
In 2012, a younger, less jaded version of me wandered into a hotel hiring center in Round Rock, Texas across the street from where my parents lived to apply for a job bussing tables at the highly anticipated second location of Jack Allen’s Kitchen in the aforementioned sleepy Austin suburb that would see considerable growth over the course of the following decade. During this time, I would become comically familiar with the lore of Z’Tejas since not only was nearly every member of the management and executive team a Z expat, but so were countless members of the staff who had been waiting for them to open a Jack Allen’s Kitchen closer to the Avery Ranch and Arboretum locations so they could also defect as their leaders all had. I would spend the next ten years opening and working at seven of their restaurants and learning everything I could about the business from these seasoned veterans as a busser, food runner, server, expediter, line cook, dishwasher, manager, and even a brief stint as a sous chef that we don’t talk about. My training was militant, intense, and highly rewarding. From these men and women, I learned everything that I needed to in order to spread my wings and leave earlier this year on to another opportunity with a young, promising restaurant group. But throughout all of this time, there was always a strange juxtaposition to reckon with that, in some ways, guided a lot of us who had cut our teeth with Jack and company to work harder: if this restaurant developed so many of their systems and practices from Z and been so successful with them, what happened to make Z so bad over the years and, furthermore, how do we stop ourselves from going down that same trajectory?
But what if I had been mistaken? What if my perceptions of this once reputable restaurant group had been pushed into a negative light more so because of my anecdotal experience than by any basis in reality? To be totally honest, I hadn’t ever considered that until very recently when upon hearing the news that the original location of Z’Tejas was closing, I decided to take my partner and my kids down to West 6th and enjoy a final bite at the old stomping grounds of so many from my old stomping grounds. My partner, also being a former member of the Jack Allen’s Kitchen brigade, was similarly ready to have a subpar experience in the name of reliving some nostalgic Austin classics. That said, the experience that we had there was… not at all what we were expecting.
When we walked in the shabby front doors of Z'Tejas on West 6th Street, we were greeted by a clearly busy, but otherwise, very friendly and accommodating server who promptly got us seated. Whenever I go to any restaurant, my restaurant manager brain is in full effect. I immediately start looking for any signs of the restaurant being dirty or disheveled and, though the place was clearly a bit old and out of shape, there weren’t any perceivable signs that it wasn’t at least getting some routine cleaning. The walls were lined with picture frames containing callbacks to a different time featuring lots of old staff/former colleagues of mine and an empty TV mount or two which definitely re-enforced the thought that “oh yeah, this place is definitely closing soon”. We were greeted by a lively and speedy server named Scotty who was confident and competent in a way that I hadn’t been led to believe existed in spaces such as these anymore. He got us our rounds of water and a topo chico for me to remind me that I’m not drinking right now and left us to our devices to laugh about how many very familiar dishes we saw on the menu that Jack had clearly been the architect of. But even our jaded career restaurant worker sensibilities couldn’t remove the shock we shared at how expedient everything was, how much greater the quality of service we received from Scotty was in comparison to that of which we’ve received at *much* nicer restaurants in the city, and most of all, how tasty everything we ordered was. After all was said and done, I was left feeling like everything I had believed about this place was wrong. Now frankly, I don’t really challenge that I was totally incorrect for most of that time - after all, I had eaten at one of these before and, even though it was some time ago, I know what kind of experience that I had. I do believe that when the new ownership took over a couple of years ago, that they probably had some sort of an effect on an uptick in quality.
So that begged the question: why then? Why was such a surprising, but well-known gem that had survived over thirty years in this city going under? I mean, I’m sure that they had sustained some injuries from a somewhat bad reputation they had taken on in previous years, but if my experience on this day was even somewhat reflective of the archetypal Z’Tejas experience, surely I wasn’t the only one who had some good opinions about the old relic. That question lingered only for a few more minutes when the check was dropped. For two appetizers, two quality kids’ entrees, two adult entrees, two topo chicos, and an iced tea, we were staring down the barrel of about $70 before tip. For those of us who are somewhat uninitiated, getting out of a restaurant with quality food and service for less than $100 is nearly unheard of in this part of the city. Up until this point, I couldn’t help but believe that the aforementioned reasons for closing this restaurant were being met by an unspoken intersection of a quality downturn driving away customers exacerbating the rising costs of rent and building upkeep. But on this itemized thermal paper receipt, I had not only a clear-cut answer to any question I had regarding the reason for Z’s death, but also, a confirmation of a fear I’ve had about the restaurant scene in urban areas for some time now: restaurants that charge these sort of reasonable rates can’t survive doing so in these areas and there is no longer a place in the sprawl of big cities for the mid-level restaurant.
On David Chang’s Hulu program, “The Next Thing You Eat”, he describes a future in which the mid-level restaurant has ceased to exist and instead, we diners of the world have hospitality culture that heavily enforces a line of demarcation between casual and fast-casual restaurants that exist in a lower price range and put a greater emphasis on delivery and carryout orders than on in-house service versus fine dining and casual-fine dining restaurants that are much more “experience oriented” and serve as the last bastion of the full-service hospitality experience that we currently know. While I think Chang makes a really solid argument the evidence of which is already presenting itself in the modern world, I think he missed a really key piece of the puzzle here, which is the fact that this will likely only apply to bigger cities. You’ll still be able to get your Red Lobster fix in Everytown, USA. We’ve already seen that corporate chain restaurants have been on a decline for years, but there will always be a demand for a relatively cheap, full-service, sit-down meal in smaller suburban and rural areas that we just don’t have in the heart of Austin. Other mid-level restaurants that remain steadfast survive off of a bustling to-go program or survive off of location like Hula Hut or Ski Shores, but in the coming years, you will see fewer and fewer exceptions to this incoming reality as more and more casual restaurants succumb to the reality that they will only entertain success if they commit to establishing themselves in sleepier parts of town.
As a career diner, this does sadden me. I’m no stranger to the higher-end, experience-oriented restaurant - hell, my partner and I both work in these types of restaurants nowadays - but, as a parent to two young children who I would like to raise to be competent and polite diners, I’m being afforded fewer and fewer opportunities to show them the right way without breaking the bank. This is just one more thing that puts the changing (read: wealthier) demographic in big cities at an advantage over we working class folks; while they get to enjoy the convenience and excitement of big city living, we’re being pushed into the outskirts and suburbs just so that we can attempt to continue enjoying any sort of quality of life without utmost regard for rent prices and $35 burgers.
Perhaps Z’Tejas is just a victim of circumstance in this regard. Perhaps anyone in my tax bracket is also falling victim to the rising tide that pushes us into the background. Perhaps I’m being hyperbolic and uncharacteristically nostalgic about a common restaurant closure. Feel free to draw whatever conclusion you feel appropriate, dear reader, but whatever you do, heed my premonitions and enjoy your Chili’s on 45th and Lamar while it still yet breathes - nothing lasts forever in this city, but the lifespan of the restaurant that has never seen a James Beard award is getting shorter and shorter with every day that passes. One day, you’ll have to drive to Buda to get onion rings at a sit-down restaurant, but for the time being, I’ve included a small list of mid-level restaurants that I like/love that you shouldn’t let the new face of the city trick you into forgetting about.
Cheers, y’all.