2006 XL Dining Guide: Casual Favorites

At El Patio, favorites stay the course for 52 years

By Dale Rice
AMERICAN-STATESMAN RESTAURANT CRITIC
Friday, November 03, 2006

Three years ago, when the Josephs were contemplating adding a new entranceway to the restaurant that had been in the family nearly five decades, David Joseph returned to his father's graveside.

Standing there, he prayed: "Dad, guide me, help me."

It was a telling moment in the history of the family that owns El Patio, the Tex-Mex restaurant at 2938 Guadalupe St. (476-5955) near the University of Texas. Paul Joseph, who founded the eatery in 1954 and was its public face for 40 years, had died eight years earlier. And this small expansion, David Joseph said, was a "huge, huge" move for the business.

In the end, the family — mother Maryann (who David says is the backbone of El Patio) and sisters Michelle, Renee and Roseann, all of whom work with David in the restaurant — simply followed a father's advice.

"Dad was a hell of a teacher," Joseph said. "He said, 'David, keep it simple. Take care of your customers and take care of your employees, and they'll take care of you.' "

The Josephs built the addition, keeping it simple. In fact, when workers stripped away the old brick façade they found the remnants of the earlier Schoonerville restaurant underneath, including the words "choice steaks," likely from the 1930s. Instead of covering it up, they left the distressed walls and old lettering, a look that many newer businesses have paid thousands of dollars to replicate.

The family restaurant also added liquor. But that, too, was kept simple. They put in a frozen margarita machine rather than a full bar.

Otherwise, the restaurant is pretty much the way it was when Frank Erwin, the legendary chairman of the UT Board of Regents, was a regular customer. Or later, when Lady Bird Johnson brought in her young grandchildren for an old-fashioned Tex-Mex meal.

The recipes are the same ones that were used when the place opened 52 years ago, a tradition that has not been as easy as it sounds.

A year and a half ago, the company that supplied El Patio with spices went out of business, and the owner declined to pass along the precise mix of ingredients he had used.

"We were having a real hard time matching the chili powder and the paprika," Joseph said. Finally, they got as close as they could to the originals, producing virtually the same taste as they had.

Today, the top two sellers at El Patio are the David Special (two beef tacos topped with queso, two cheese enchiladas, rice, beans and coffee or tea) and the El Patio (a taco, chile con queso, chalupa, guacamole salad and coffee or tea). Not only is the restaurant one of the last in the area to include coffee or tea in the price of a meal, it also is one of the last to include dessert — a praline or sherbet — as well.

The biggest misconception about the fare at El Patio is the homemade chips served with tacos, nachos and queso.

"People think they are tortillas that we deep-fry," Joseph said. Actually, the restaurant puts fresh masa through an old tortilla press and immediately deep-fries the circles of raw dough to produce the large, crisp chips.

Those chips aren't to be confused with the ones served with the salsa. For the old-timers, those standard chips represent the most dramatic change in the restaurant's fare in the entire life of El Patio.

For the first 47 years, the Josephs served saltine crackers with the salsa. Then, the company that produced the crackers raised the price $6 or $7 a case, and they became too expensive to continue giving away in great quantities. So the restaurant switched to chips.

"Those crackers were a big deal," Joseph said. "People weren't used to change."

At first, he told them it was BYOC — bring your own crackers. But so many people kept requesting them, that the restaurant now stocks saltines for those customers who prefer crackers over chips.

"There are still plenty of people who ask," Joseph said.

The waiters, whose longevity with the restaurant ranges from 15 to 33 years, know who most of those diners are and bring the crackers without being asked. It's the tone set by Paul Joseph that lives on in El Patio: Take care of the customers and they'll take care of you.

drice@statesman.com; 445-3859

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