El Chile Empire Pushes into South Austin, Plants Flag on Barton Springs Rd

The El Chile chain of restaurants plans to open its second El Chilito taqueria in South Austin this August, taking over the corner site on Barton Springs and Dawson Road that was previously occupied by Gypsy's Italian Bistro.

"We've been waiting to get into South Austin for a while now," said owner Carlos Rivero in yesterday's AJB article. "This location was a home run for us and is the perfect fit for the El Chilito concept."

The previous second location of El Chilito on Congress Avenue had a brief run before it was upgraded to its full-service sibling, El Chile. Choosing to launch the more casual eatery at 1025 Barton Springs, across from Palmer Events Center, probably makes more sense, given that the area suffers from a serious shortage of parking for non-neighborhood residents, which makes it harder to sustain a more formal sit-down restaurant.

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By Allen Y Chen in Food on July 22, 2009 9:30 AM 0 Comments

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kerri

that would be doing the opposite of what i wanted (saving them money and therefore having no effect on their use of styrofoam). I only post in hope others will think twice about going to el chilito or at least think about voicing their opinion to them in hope of a change. It is a very popular restaurant and if they switched cups a lot of styrofoam can be eliminated. They certainly make enough money to afford to.

kerri

Glad they make enough money to keep expanding, but still feel the need to use styrofoam cups. It's great our environment can go down the toliet so this company can save some money on wholesale cups!