Healthy Eats in Austin, Texas by Shelley Seale

Mother’s Café and Garden
Here’s a tidbit that might surprise you about Mother’s Café and Garden, one of Austin’s favorite vegetarian restaurants: approximately eighty percent of the customers who eat there aren’t vegetarian. In co-owner Cameron Alexander’s eyes, this is validation for the business model that he and his partners, Anne Daniels and John Filberberg, had in mind from the beginning.

According to Alexander, the goal was never to push a rigid health-food regime or be dogmatic about vegetarianism. “I don’t like proselytizing,” he says. “We just wanted to make really good food. It was a decision based on values, not on business.” Nevertheless, Mother’s does have a history of health-consciousness. It was one of the earliest non-smoking establishments in the city, opening as a smoke-free restaurant back when that was virtually unheard of. “We were sort of bucking the mainstream,” says Alexander, “but that’s part of what I liked about it. And as it turned out, there were a lot of other people in Austin who felt the same way.”

Alexander started working at Mother’s as a cook, on the first day it opened in 1980. By 1985 he and two other partners had completely bought out the business. Since then all three co-owners have remained active in the daily operations of Mother’s. “We believe that’s how you keep quality and standards high,” says Alexander, who still works in the kitchen. “I love it. It was all a discovery to me back in 1980, but I really liked the pace and teamwork of the kitchen environment. And I love dealing with our customers, too. We have a very loyal clientele who have come to feel like family.”

It was this very aspect of the business that made a 2007 disaster so difficult. In the early morning hours of Wednesday, March 7 the restaurant suffered a fire that nearly destroyed it. Initially the owners expected to be closed for perhaps six weeks. But further investigation revealed that the wiring and plumbing had been rendered useless and it was soon clear that the entire building, outside the kitchen, would have to be completely gutted and rebuilt.

Mother’s Café and Garden reopened in October 2007 with no notice and no advertising, and the restaurant was packed from day one. “It was really heartwarming,” says Alexander. “Finding out how important our restaurant was to people – not only as a place to eat but as a place in the community – showed me how much it means to me.”

Mother’s Café and Garden is located at 4215 Duval Street and is open Monday through Friday from 11:15am to 10pm, and on Saturdays and Sundays from 10am to 10pm.

Natural Organics: Eastside Café


Being at Eastside Café is a bit like being at grandma’s house. There’s the charming white and gray frame house with beautiful woodwork and chandeliers, the large front porch that invites neighbors to come on up, the garden out back where vegetables, herbs and ?owers explode in colors and scents, and the old pecan trees that spread their branches above. And of course, the aromas of delicious things cooking that permeate it all. In fact, this is exactly what co-owners Dorsey Barger and Elaine Martin envisioned when they began planning to open a restaurant more than twenty years ago. “We speci?cally wanted to ?nd an old house as our location,” Barger said.

The menu is an eclectic mix of food, including soups and salads, seafood, pastas, a full weekend brunch and decadent desserts. Organic beer, wine, teas and sodas are served. There are also daily specials from chef Ruth Carter that are designed around the best offerings from the garden that day.

Eastside Café also offers gardening workshops on a monthly basis, which include wine tasting and dinner. “We wanted to go beyond us to the bigger purpose, and the best way to do that is to expose others to this way of gardening and teach them how to do it.” The workshops have been a huge success and have sold out so quickly that a second class per month has recently been added.

The relaxed atmosphere created at Eastside Café is one where all kinds of people can come in and feel comfortable. “Our customers are an amazing group of people,” Barger said. “They have supported us and our mission, and our way of doing business. What makes us an Austin kind of place is that Austinites really appreciate progressive thinking.”

Eastside Café is located at 2113 Manor Road and is open Monday through Thursday 11:30am to 9:30pm; Friday 11:30am to 10pm; Saturday 10am to 3pm for brunch and 3pm to 10pm for dinner; and Sunday 10am to 3pm for brunch and 3pm to 9:30pm for dinner.