Pezmonger
08-02-2006, 02:12 PM
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chronicle/4082738.html
Diner's future on the table
A hotel project threatens the Las Manitas cafe, but locals are cooking up ways to save it
By LISA FALKENBERG
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
AUSTIN - The vegetarian chorizo, the customers walking through the kitchen, politicos stuffed in a booth next to a punk-rock-alt-country-Latin singer — all of it has made Las Manitas Avenue Cafe an Austin icon, long representing what's funky, or weird, about Texas' liberal oasis.
But recently the Tex-Mex diner has become an example of a common trend that's plagued Austin since hippie-country got cool: insatiable downtown growth that is threatening to plop a $185 million hotel project on the land that houses Las Manitas and several other local businesses.
Las Manitas fans haven't digested the news well.
"I would never eat again," former Comptroller John Sharp declared one morning last week after devouring a steaming plate of migas.
Some bloggers have deemed the potential loss a "tragedy." Local musicians are considering a benefit concert. The sisters who run the place, Lidia and Cynthia Perez, have launched a Web site: www.savelasmanitas.org.
The sisters and city officials, including many Las Manitas regulars, are cooking up solutions to save the piece of Austin soul, everything from denying the developer waivers to passing an ordinance protecting Austin "icons."
Other options include renting space in the new hotel complex, persuading the hotel to build around the restaurant or moving Las Manitas several doors down to a building owned by the Perez sisters that has historical protection. It's currently a Latino cultural center called La Peña. It all started when the building's owner, Finley Co., signed a long-term lease with Indiana-based White Lodging Service Corp., to build three Marriott hotels, the highest reaching 26 stories, on the Congress Avenue block that holds Las Manitas, a folk art shop and a popular Spanish-immersion day care with a two-year waiting list.
The tenants' leases are set to expire in December. Finley officials didn't return calls for comment. A White Lodging official said the company is seeking solutions acceptable for all parties.
"We understand that these are considered institutions in Austin and that there's a long history behind them, and we're certainly sensitive to that issue," said Judy Bronowski, vice president of business planning communications.
Dina Flores, who runs Escuelita del Alma, the day care, isn't sure. Flores said she met with the developers' attorneys last week and that "we haven't heard anything good so far that implies they're willing to work with the tenants. It was more like 'we need that little strip. You guys are tenants. Where can we move you to?'"
In the beginning
Cynthia Perez, who, along with her sister, built Las Manitas up from a taco stand they ran near the University of Texas, said they invested in a depressed part of downtown long before other businesses would.
She's proud of the diverse droves of people the restaurant lures.
"Is this the payment? 'Well, we don't need you anymore. Goodbye?" Perez said. "If we disappear and the day care disappears, that's part of the sad legacy of more money moving into this city. But it's kind of hard to fight the tsunami of money."
Besides being a local favorite, Las Manitas is a must-eat for many tourists and music fans attending festivals.
Last Saturday, the famous migas drew director Quentin Tarantino, in town working on his next project, Grind House, with Robert Rodriguez.
Tarantino said he's been coming to Las Manitas for about 12 years and is worried that the growing number of high-rise, high-rent condos, and hotel and retail projects downtown could edge out local, independent businesses that give Austin its kick.
"It's a victim of its own success," Tarantino said. "What made it a success is places like this and the Alamo Drafthouse (Cinema). If these places can't afford to pay their rent, Austin will go back to the dark ages as far as I'm concerned."
Still, Tarantino said he has confidence the Austin community won't let Las Manitas go.
Sharp, the former comptroller, agreed: "Brewster will save it," he said after breakfast.
Moving it 'misses the point'
A few tables away, Brewster — that would be City Councilman Brewster McCracken, a former Harris County prosecutor — sipped his coffee and digested his favorite dish of eggs, black beans, fried plantains and two soft corn tortillas.
"Las Manitas is a place that's refused to succumb to the corporate modern rules," he said. "It marches to its own drummer."
"Just call it weird," his policy director, Rachel Proctor May, interjected.
"My sense," the councilman continued with a laugh, "is that it would kind of miss the point to move it somewhere else."
McCracken said he's gotten plenty of pleas from constituents to save the place, even more from the tie-wearing crowd than the Birkenstock crowd. He thinks closing or relocating Las Manitas might be more traumatic for Austin than the demise of Liberty Lunch, a beloved live music venue that closed in 1999 for redevelopment.
"We arguably got something to replace Liberty Lunch that was a great asset to the community," he said, adding that some of the land was used to build a new city hall. "I don't think people feel the same about this corporate hotel."
From the neon signs in the glass storefront to the linoleum floor worn down to the slab, Las Manitas exhales history. Portraits of musicians, newspaper broadsheets of adoring reviews and an ever-present display of fresh artwork paper the walls.
"This place, it's got a heartbeat," says Marsha Power, an Austin salon owner and lover of spicy huevos.
Worried about day care
She's counting on the determined Cynthia Perez to save the place. "I don't anymore have faith in politicians, but I do have faith in Cynthia. I mean, she can pull a rabbit out of a hat."
Alejandro Escovedo hopes so.
The singer-songwriter doesn't know what he'd do without the day care next door that his 3-year-old daughter attends or Las Manitas' huevos con chorizo.
"To me, this place represents one of the last places in Austin that nurtures this kind of feeling. It's like you're coming home."
Customers who aren't squeezed in a booth, at a table or hunched over a newspaper in swivel chairs at the counter are ushered through the restaurant to the patio.
On the way, they pass through the heart of Las Manitas. The steely kitchen is alive with color — tubs of ripe avocados, little cups of pico de gallo — aromas of chicken, onion, migas steaming over gas flames and the tune of clanging pots, quick bursts of Spanish, calls for orders.
Cooks work like pistons, their smooth fingers shredding chicken for enchiladas, warming gorditas on a griddle while 73-year-old Matilde "Mati" Torres nurses her refried beans, frijoles so good that when she's not working, customers complain of a subtle difference in taste.
"I'm worried now," said Torres, who has been working at Las Manitas for about 20 years. "But I believe in God. He'll help."
If that doesn't work, Dave Sullivan has an idea.
The chairman of the city planning commission calls it "iconic preservation," a program that would both support and protect businesses deemed Austin icons.
Wisconsin has a similar program to protect barns and Vermont has one for covered bridges, Sullivan said.
Such a program could offer incentives to icons and require that developers asking for increased entitlements preserve any iconic property on site.
Sullivan is shopping the idea this week, though he isn't certain it would pass in time to help Las Manitas.
"If there is strong support for it — and I haven't met anybody yet who doesn't like this idea — it is something that could come about in a couple of months," he said.
Diner's future on the table
A hotel project threatens the Las Manitas cafe, but locals are cooking up ways to save it
By LISA FALKENBERG
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
AUSTIN - The vegetarian chorizo, the customers walking through the kitchen, politicos stuffed in a booth next to a punk-rock-alt-country-Latin singer — all of it has made Las Manitas Avenue Cafe an Austin icon, long representing what's funky, or weird, about Texas' liberal oasis.
But recently the Tex-Mex diner has become an example of a common trend that's plagued Austin since hippie-country got cool: insatiable downtown growth that is threatening to plop a $185 million hotel project on the land that houses Las Manitas and several other local businesses.
Las Manitas fans haven't digested the news well.
"I would never eat again," former Comptroller John Sharp declared one morning last week after devouring a steaming plate of migas.
Some bloggers have deemed the potential loss a "tragedy." Local musicians are considering a benefit concert. The sisters who run the place, Lidia and Cynthia Perez, have launched a Web site: www.savelasmanitas.org.
The sisters and city officials, including many Las Manitas regulars, are cooking up solutions to save the piece of Austin soul, everything from denying the developer waivers to passing an ordinance protecting Austin "icons."
Other options include renting space in the new hotel complex, persuading the hotel to build around the restaurant or moving Las Manitas several doors down to a building owned by the Perez sisters that has historical protection. It's currently a Latino cultural center called La Peña. It all started when the building's owner, Finley Co., signed a long-term lease with Indiana-based White Lodging Service Corp., to build three Marriott hotels, the highest reaching 26 stories, on the Congress Avenue block that holds Las Manitas, a folk art shop and a popular Spanish-immersion day care with a two-year waiting list.
The tenants' leases are set to expire in December. Finley officials didn't return calls for comment. A White Lodging official said the company is seeking solutions acceptable for all parties.
"We understand that these are considered institutions in Austin and that there's a long history behind them, and we're certainly sensitive to that issue," said Judy Bronowski, vice president of business planning communications.
Dina Flores, who runs Escuelita del Alma, the day care, isn't sure. Flores said she met with the developers' attorneys last week and that "we haven't heard anything good so far that implies they're willing to work with the tenants. It was more like 'we need that little strip. You guys are tenants. Where can we move you to?'"
In the beginning
Cynthia Perez, who, along with her sister, built Las Manitas up from a taco stand they ran near the University of Texas, said they invested in a depressed part of downtown long before other businesses would.
She's proud of the diverse droves of people the restaurant lures.
"Is this the payment? 'Well, we don't need you anymore. Goodbye?" Perez said. "If we disappear and the day care disappears, that's part of the sad legacy of more money moving into this city. But it's kind of hard to fight the tsunami of money."
Besides being a local favorite, Las Manitas is a must-eat for many tourists and music fans attending festivals.
Last Saturday, the famous migas drew director Quentin Tarantino, in town working on his next project, Grind House, with Robert Rodriguez.
Tarantino said he's been coming to Las Manitas for about 12 years and is worried that the growing number of high-rise, high-rent condos, and hotel and retail projects downtown could edge out local, independent businesses that give Austin its kick.
"It's a victim of its own success," Tarantino said. "What made it a success is places like this and the Alamo Drafthouse (Cinema). If these places can't afford to pay their rent, Austin will go back to the dark ages as far as I'm concerned."
Still, Tarantino said he has confidence the Austin community won't let Las Manitas go.
Sharp, the former comptroller, agreed: "Brewster will save it," he said after breakfast.
Moving it 'misses the point'
A few tables away, Brewster — that would be City Councilman Brewster McCracken, a former Harris County prosecutor — sipped his coffee and digested his favorite dish of eggs, black beans, fried plantains and two soft corn tortillas.
"Las Manitas is a place that's refused to succumb to the corporate modern rules," he said. "It marches to its own drummer."
"Just call it weird," his policy director, Rachel Proctor May, interjected.
"My sense," the councilman continued with a laugh, "is that it would kind of miss the point to move it somewhere else."
McCracken said he's gotten plenty of pleas from constituents to save the place, even more from the tie-wearing crowd than the Birkenstock crowd. He thinks closing or relocating Las Manitas might be more traumatic for Austin than the demise of Liberty Lunch, a beloved live music venue that closed in 1999 for redevelopment.
"We arguably got something to replace Liberty Lunch that was a great asset to the community," he said, adding that some of the land was used to build a new city hall. "I don't think people feel the same about this corporate hotel."
From the neon signs in the glass storefront to the linoleum floor worn down to the slab, Las Manitas exhales history. Portraits of musicians, newspaper broadsheets of adoring reviews and an ever-present display of fresh artwork paper the walls.
"This place, it's got a heartbeat," says Marsha Power, an Austin salon owner and lover of spicy huevos.
Worried about day care
She's counting on the determined Cynthia Perez to save the place. "I don't anymore have faith in politicians, but I do have faith in Cynthia. I mean, she can pull a rabbit out of a hat."
Alejandro Escovedo hopes so.
The singer-songwriter doesn't know what he'd do without the day care next door that his 3-year-old daughter attends or Las Manitas' huevos con chorizo.
"To me, this place represents one of the last places in Austin that nurtures this kind of feeling. It's like you're coming home."
Customers who aren't squeezed in a booth, at a table or hunched over a newspaper in swivel chairs at the counter are ushered through the restaurant to the patio.
On the way, they pass through the heart of Las Manitas. The steely kitchen is alive with color — tubs of ripe avocados, little cups of pico de gallo — aromas of chicken, onion, migas steaming over gas flames and the tune of clanging pots, quick bursts of Spanish, calls for orders.
Cooks work like pistons, their smooth fingers shredding chicken for enchiladas, warming gorditas on a griddle while 73-year-old Matilde "Mati" Torres nurses her refried beans, frijoles so good that when she's not working, customers complain of a subtle difference in taste.
"I'm worried now," said Torres, who has been working at Las Manitas for about 20 years. "But I believe in God. He'll help."
If that doesn't work, Dave Sullivan has an idea.
The chairman of the city planning commission calls it "iconic preservation," a program that would both support and protect businesses deemed Austin icons.
Wisconsin has a similar program to protect barns and Vermont has one for covered bridges, Sullivan said.
Such a program could offer incentives to icons and require that developers asking for increased entitlements preserve any iconic property on site.
Sullivan is shopping the idea this week, though he isn't certain it would pass in time to help Las Manitas.
"If there is strong support for it — and I haven't met anybody yet who doesn't like this idea — it is something that could come about in a couple of months," he said.