Viuda Bistro appeals to the deaf and hearing in Buda

BUDA — Casual customers might not even notice. Instead, diners at Viuda Bistro might focus on the ingenious food, the warm social glow or the funky décor, seemingly at odds with the complicated cuisine.

At some point in the evening, however, on nights when Helen's Casa Alde in downtown Buda doubles as Viuda Bistro, co-manager Paul Rutowski greets customers through a signing interpreter. The curious diner, peeking into the kitchen, might also catch chef Kurt Ramborger and sous chef Jacquelyn Doudt mid-discussion, fingers flying through American Sign Language.

They — as well as other employees and a subset of the regular crowd — are deaf or hard of hearing.

"The deaf community has always been very supportive of us," Rutowski says of the bistro that opened, at first monthly, now four days a week, last year. "They came in flocks at the beginning and it (has) kind of worn off a bit. But we continue to have a good number of loyal customers."

Still, the Wisconsin-born teacher and businessman doesn't mind when people don't notice the discreet ASL.

"Personally, I try to eliminate the perception of deafness," Rutowski, 43, states with customary tact. "As Kurt says, you don't need ears to cook. I try to be transparent, because I don't want people to either come (or) not come because of our deafness. We want them to come because they enjoy the ambience, service and food — nothing else."

So what's up with that name, which, if pronounced with a diphthong, resembles "Buda"?

"Viuda" is Spanish for widow. The Carrington Hotel, located in the 1880s along the railroad tracks in the Hays County town of "Du Pre," was staffed by widows. Thus, according to local lore, when forced to change its name because another Texas town had already claimed "Du Pre," "Buda" was borrowed from a corruption of "viuda."

Next up: The distinctive location of Viuda Bistro inside a folksy Mexican restaurant. For three decades, Helen's Casa Alde was among the only eateries in droopy downtown Buda. It served mostly breakfast and lunch, overseen today as in the past by 88-year-old Helen Alcala. Her son, Buda native Rene Alcala, met Rutowski through fitness classes.

"We became Facebook friends and that's how I found out that Paul was running a catering company," co-manager Rene Alcala, 54, says. "I was very impressed with the energy he put into his business."

So Rutowski, Alcala and Ramborger hatched a phased plan to re-introduce a certain cuisine to a community that, for a while, had supported chef Paul Petersen's excellent Little Texas Bistro.

Rutowski and Ramborger, who have lived north, south east and west, met in college.

"Deaf people tend to move around the country because of limited job opportunities, or to be where the deaf schools are," he says. "Some would like to stay where their families are, but it's hard."

Rutowski's gregarious mother mainstreamed her son until he, by chance, encountered students from a deaf school.

"I was 11 and had no idea there was such a thing," he says. "I said: ‘Hey mom, what's that?' ‘Oh, no, no, no that's not for you, because you're too special.' "

Rutowski grew up oral, speaking to everyone in the family and at school, where he was popular.

"When you are young, it's easy to get along with everybody," he says. "But at junior high, they develop groups or cliques and I couldn't really find a group I could fit in. I was a very good athlete, but the school had no support services, just a very pure hearing environment. So I twisted my mother's arm."

He visited the school for the deaf and never turned back. After graduating with honors, he attended Gallaudet University in Washington D.C., engaged in deaf activism and headed to Western Maryland College for a master's degree. His first job was teaching at Texas School for the Deaf, one of the best such schools in the country, in a city that maintains a reasonable comfort level with deafness.

"I don't feel deaf here in Austin," he says. "In Wisconsin I did. They don't have the type of exposure we enjoy here."