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After nearly 18 years of serving enchiladas, tacos, rellenos, and superb margaritas at its East Austin Café, one of the city’s most revered Tex-Mex spots is spilling the beans over an upcoming move.
El Chile Cafe y Cantina, the Manor Road Tex-Mex staple and flagship brand of Austin-based El Chile Group, is moving away from its long-standing home in favor of a grander location. But don’t get your tacos in trouble losing your favorite East Side canteen; El Chile moves across the street.
El Chile will move from its current location at 1809 Manor Rd. To a new residence at 1900 Manor Rd., In the delightful building that last housed the El Chile Group’s Yuyo Peruvian restaurant, which closed in 2020 due to the pandemic . Many Austinites also know the space as the quirky triangular concrete island bordered by Manor Road, East Dean Keaton Street, and Lafayette Avenue.
El Chile announced the move on Thursday, September 9, citing the restaurant’s need for an updated interior space and a larger terrace.
Renovation work on the new location in El Chile is underway and almost complete, a company representative told CultureMap, with the move coming in the coming weeks. El Chile expects the restaurant will not be closed for more than a day or two during the move.
Key to the upgrades in the new 1900 Manor Rd. Spot is the goal of providing guests with a very canteen-like dining experience. New tile floors have been added, along with a Spanish style terrace with comfortable seating and new furniture. The bar seating is the ideal place to sip El Chile’s margaritas and the new cocktail menu, which includes an expanded tequila and mezcal list, as well as other frozen drinks.
The menu will continue to feature El Chile’s long-standing favorites as well as some new products, and the snack menu has been expanded with the kind permission of culinary director Alma Alcocer-Thomas.
“We thought a lot about a real cantina feeling. We want people to come for lunch and dinner of course, but we also want them to feel like they are having a quick bite of ceviche and michelada on their way to the game, or having a nightcap after a show on something nearby Theater, ”says Justin Audibert, the group’s new operations manager. “The additional seating, the larger bar, the open floor plan are all part of this conversation.”
The new El Chile will be the group’s first full-service restaurant concept with its own take-away window, offering curb, walk-up and to-go service and giving Tex-Mex fanatics the opportunity to place orders give up and pick up without having to enter the restaurant. There will even be a cozy waiting area with a TV where customers can sip a cocktail while they wait for their meal.
Austinites will quickly spot the eye-catching “Cantina” marquee (which has historical links to the building) and the surely Instagram-worthy exterior mural by local artist Leigh Watson of Watson Murals with the restaurant’s new brand.
The new and larger restaurant space will be a boon to the El Chile Group, which also manages the El Alma Mexican restaurant and popular El Chilito taco shack, especially considering the company has faced a fair share of pandemic-related issues and Yuyo and its East Seventh has closed El Chilito’s Street location in recent months.
With regard to the future of the current El Chile area in 1809 Manor Rd., The company does not comment on concrete plans in our dialogue. “
We hope that another excellent El Chile Group concept will flourish there. In the meantime, the folks at El Chile are keen to delight Austin with its vibrant new cantina home.
“We’re really excited about this space,” says founder Orlando Sanchez. “After that final year, it was obvious to get back to our roots and invest in our original brand before expanding and doing something else. It’s easy to keep looking to what’s next – and we have new things to do – but El Chile has been open for nearly two decades. This is where we started, and it deserves a big, beautiful, newly remodeled place. It’s really satisfying to put some energy back into this concept. “
Follow El Chile on Instagram for updates.
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