Guest Contributor: Josh Kerr

(Ed. note: maggie here, it really is free unlimited beer & wine with your meal until they get their liquor license, there is no excuse not to go to the new downtown location, most likely a month until they get it!) now back to Josh…

I’ve always been a fan of El Chile on Manor Road.  I’d go meet up friends on a beautiful evening and sip on Michelada while eating some of the best Mexican food in Austin.  When we received word that El Chilito location downtown was going to be transformed into El Chile, we got really excited.  Fast forward a week and the transformation is complete.  Seriously, it took them a week to reconfigure El Chilito into El Chile.  But one look at the new trendy digs and you’d never believe it.

Apparently the owners of El Chile know how to open a restaurant.   In fact, Carlos Rivero knows how to do a lot of things.  This co-founder got his start in the restaurant business 18 years ago as a valet for the Austin Club.  You see, the club didn’t have a valet and Carlos thought it could use one, so he approached them and asked for the job.   They made him head of valet shortly after the meeting.  From there Carlos moved on to pretty much every job in the restaurant business save for the chef.  “I’d like to go to culinary school, its been a dream of mine.”  So in a few years (or when he gets around to it) Carlos will have had EVERY job in the restaurant business.

 Carlos Rivero in front of a gorgeous mural created especially for the restaurant. It only took 2 days to paint this with stencils.

I like to think that the best heads of companies worked their way up from the bottom.  It’s only at the bottom that you get a feel for the business.  Start in the stock room, move into the mail room, learn every aspect of the business on your way to the top.  This was Carlos’ strategy and it worked perfectly.

Its all about the food.  This is the Pescado Entortillado.

Well, almost perfectly.  There have been many obstacles in his ascent to becoming a restaurant owner.  The biggest is service.   Every one of the 5 restaurants that Carlos owns must have top of the line service.  Even if the food isn’t expensive, the service must be great.  Carlos can deliver great service and has plenty of experience doing it, but passing that information down to the people who work for him has always been a challenge.

Tortilla Soup

Service at the new location was great, but Carlos was there going around to each table to make it so.  The food was delicous and very reasonably priced.  The lunch menu is a bit smaller than the dinner menu but covers the important items.  My favorite is the Chile Relleno and the Enchiladas de Mole Rojo.  We also both love the mole salsa that they put on the table which we just found out you can buy from Whole Foods.

Queso Flameado

El Chile doesn’t currently have its liquor license so for the next month or so while they acquire it, they will be giving free beer and wine during dinner.  I’d say this is the best deal in town at the moment.  Change your plans and head on over there before the deal ends.  I know I will.

Chocolate Torte

Maggie drinking a Mexican Coke.  (Has real sugar instead of corn syrup.)

Gorgeous artwork dons the walls.

They aren’t messing around with that bar.