How a 75-Year-Old Tex-Mex Restaurant Became a Magnet for Politicians and Artists

Some people called him Cisco. Others called him Rudy. Only total strangers said Mr. Cisneros, because once a person had met the gregarious, cigar-chomping owner of Cisco’s Restaurant in Austin, the two were friends for life. For nearly half a century—from 1950 until his passing, in 1995—Rudy “Cisco” Cisneros was one of the Capital City’s bona fide characters. The dining public knew him from the Tex-Mex combo plates, huevos rancheros, and migas his restaurant produced in abundance. Assorted bigwigs, including a future U.S. president and two future Texas governors, knew him as the person behind a much-frequented backroom poker game and a political-gossip exchange. Community leaders sought him out when they needed to find common ground between the city’s Mexican American and Anglo citizens. W