East Austin Diner, Community Focal Point, 'El Azteca' Set To Close By Month's End

EAST AUSTIN, TX -- Gentrification has claimed yet another victim in East Austin. And on myriad levels, this one hurts especially.

El Azteca at 2600 E. 7th St. will close its doors by month's end, according to the Austin American-Statesman. The diner was founded by Jorge D. Guerra and Ninfa Guerra in 1963.

More than a restaurant -- although its Tex-Mex staples have kept Austinites clamoring for more over the decades -- the place emerged as a community focal point. Important conversations and community gatherings occurred here, against a backdrop of gentrification sweeping over East Austin that has resulted in a changed landscape from the diners heyday.

It's no secret that East Austin, once primarily an enclave for the Latino working class, has become trendy in the last few years with an influx of out-of-towners descending on the city for its high-paying jobs. Along the way, institutions like El Azteca are being displaced as real estate speculators snap up land for commercial development and luxury housing.

As the Statesman notes -- in what amounts, sadly, to an obituary for the business -- the restaurant has long featured authentic cuisine reflective of its roots: cabrito, mole, barbacoa de cabeza.

If you don't know what these items are, then you just don't know. And you may never fully understand what all this means.

The place gained fans well beyond East Austin. Chef and television personality Anthony Bourdain once sat down for a mean and conversation with musician Alejandro Escovedo at El Azteca for a taping of his erstwhile television series "No Reservations." Watch their meeting at the 27-minute mark of that episode here.

But the place is more than the delectable sum of its culinary delights. The newspaper's former editorial page editor Arnold Garcia, in an email to his former employer, stated the significance of this particular gentrification-fueled closure most eloquently: "Barrio restaurants owned by people who had a strong sense of community are (becoming) a thing of the past, and that's a shame," he wrote.

Garcia himself represents a loss of another sort, a status making him uniquely qualified to discuss the restaurant closure. After 38 years at the Statesman, Garcia retired in 2013, much to the consternation of a Latino community already lamenting the loss of its institutions only to be saddened at loss of an editorial voice resonant to them and their experiences.

Garcia's departure came in the midst of dwindling diversity in the newsroom, a dearth of varied voices that prompts hand-wringing among editors struggling to maintain their ranks . At his retirement, Garcia was dubbed the "dean of Texas editorial boards" given his long tenure.

As for the soon-to-be-shuttered restaurant, Garcia posited it as a victim of its times. Were it that such revered institutions could survive based on historical significance to their communities alone.

"But between the proliferation of chains, the gentrification, increased property values and the aging of long time barrio residents, those kinds of places are difficult to sustain,” he told the Statesman.

An Aztec -- or El Azteca -- refers to a member of the Nahuatl-speaking state in Central Mexico doomed after the 1521 arrival of conquistador Hernán Cortés, who ultimately won Mexico for the Spanish crown. Gentrification represents a different sort of conquest -- less benign without attendant bloodshed -- powered by an unrelenting force residents say cuts through the figurative heart of their quickly vanishing community.

After the last meal is served, El Azteca closes its doors forever on Sept. 29.

>>> Read the full story at Austin American-Statesman

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