East Cesar Chavez: Eating, Drinking, and Getting Lost in Austin's East Side
A local guide to East Cesar Chavez in Austin, covering its history, safety, best restaurants, breweries, nightlife, shopping, and cultural highlights.
Nancy J. Hassler
East Cesar Chavez
Most people try 6th Street once. That's usually enough. East of I-35 is where people end up after that — East Cesar Chavez, named after the labor organizer, has been Latino working-class Austin for a long time. Still is. A few craft breweries opened in the last decade, a wine bar or two. The taquerias from before are all still there and still busy.
History
The older name for this area is Masontown. Two brothers — Sam and Raiford — bought the land in 1867. Freed Black Americans settled it, built two Baptist churches, somewhere around 200 residents at the peak. Then gradually less. By the 1980s that original community was gone — displaced, same pattern as Clarksville and Wheatville, same era. The city didn't make a big thing of it.
Parts of the old housing stock are still standing. The Willow-Spence Streets Historic District, south of the boulevard, still has blocks of houses from the early 1900s. Small lots, simple builds. They went on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.
1999 — the city pushed through a Neighborhood Plan, opening the area to mixed-use development. By 2005 property values in 78702 had more than doubled from where they were in 2000. Around the same years, the Black population in parts of East Austin fell from roughly 80% to somewhere under 20%. Make of that what you will.
Right now the neighborhood runs about 75% Hispanic/Latino, household incomes a fair bit below what Austin averages. The Tejano Walking Trail goes 4.9 miles through the area, 24 stops, maybe two and a half hours if you actually read the markers.
Is East Cesar Chavez Safe?
For anyone coming to eat, drink, shop — yes. The main strip along César Chávez stays busy through the evening. People around, businesses open.
Normal city precautions: don't leave things in your car, pay attention at night on quieter streets. Nothing particular to this neighborhood. East Cesar Chavez Austin gets a worse rep than it deserves from people who treat I-35 as some kind of dividing line. It isn't. Go, walk around, eat something.
Restaurants
Get there early if you're going to Tamale House East. The line forms before it opens. Tamales made by hand, breakfast tacos that taste like what people mean when they talk about Austin breakfast tacos — not a brunch version, not a hotel version. People who grew up eating tacos in Austin eat here. That's the only review that counts.
R&B's Steak and Fries — steak, fries, short menu, kitchen that doesn't try to cover too much ground. The regulars have been going for years. Better recommendation than any star rating.
Palomino's Food Truck is a small operation with a focused menu. Cash-friendly, no long wait, the kind of truck where the person taking your order also cooked the food. Austin has plenty of food trucks that coast on the format. This one actually cooks well. Go when it's open.
Madrasdhaba does South Indian food without adjusting the flavors for a cautious audience. Dosas, rice dishes, chutneys that actually have heat in them. The portions are big. First time trying South Indian food, or twentieth — either way it works here.
A few others worth knowing: Juan in a Million has been open since 1980. The Don Juan breakfast burrito literally covers the whole plate — eggs, potato, bacon, cheese, all of it. Grizzelda's has a hot pink wall outside and a Tex-Mex menu that leans coastal Mexican; you'll photograph the wall before you order. Flat Track Coffee shares a building with a bike shop, does cold brew by the gallon if you need it. Sawyer & Co. is the sit-down option — Southern food with a New Orleans angle, opens at 7am on weekdays, the shrimp and grits are worth ordering over the safe stuff.
Breweries & Nightlife
Central Machine Works Brewery is in an old industrial building — high ceilings, the original bones still visible. Beer hall with a big outdoor area. Beer is solid, food covers what it needs to. The kind of place where an afternoon accidentally becomes an evening.
Blue Owl Brewing specializes in sour-mashed beers. If sour beer is your thing, go. If it isn't, start somewhere else.
High Noon has a painted flying Pegasus out front. Inside it's western, a little 80s, with a stage for local musicians and a back patio. Shouldn't work as a concept. Does anyway. Better on a night when there's someone playing.
Lustre Pearl East — shaded patio, dog-friendly, relaxed. Right for happy hour. The Electric Church is smaller, actual venue energy, worth going when something's on the calendar.
Rainey Street in Austin is across I-35 and walkable if you want to keep moving later in the night.
Shopping & Art
Resistencia Bookstore stocks Chicano, Latino, Native American, and queer bilingual literature. Writers you won't find at a chain. If books are your thing, go in. Buy something.
EA/ST CO. makes handmade pottery and ceramics — half studio, half shop. The work is actually handmade and you can tell the difference.
Treasure City Thrift is cheap secondhand clothing. Proceeds go to local charities. The stock moves fast enough that two visits a month won't feel the same.
Women & Their Work is a free contemporary art gallery with rotating shows: painting, sculpture, performance, digital work. Check what's currently up before going, the specific show matters.
The murals are all over the neighborhood. Some are old enough to look like they've always been there. Take a side street or two. The main road doesn't show you everything.
Want to know which spots are actually worth your time in East Cesar Chavez? Download the Loca app — short video reviews from people who've been there, not a curated list from someone who hasn't.
