embracing LOCAL
FOR THE LOVE OF BISCUITS BY DA R BY K E N DA L L • P H OTO G RA P H Y BY D UST I N M EY E R
Cisco’s Restaurant
R
ound versus square; toasty versus soft; tall versus com-
ate it, they couldn’t make the same biscuit. We’ve been using the
pact—there’s a great variety of Southern-style biscuits
same oven to make them for over sixty years.” For added nostal-
around Austin, and plenty of opinions. Fortunately for the
gia, top off a split biscuit with Cisco’s old-school liquid butter—or
biscuit-obsessed, our town boasts an abundance of eateries that
simply use it as a large, fluffy vessel to soak up the rest of your
serve the baked good, and we visited with five that serve some of
Tex-Mex sauce.
the best. Regardless of personal biscuit preferences, all these lo-
On the opposite end of Austin’s food timeline is Bird Bird
cal joints are serving up delicious and buttery pillows of comfort.
Biscuit, a new biscuit sandwich shop located on Manor Road.
One of Austin’s beloved biscuit-hawking classics, Cisco’s
Started by Brian Batch and Ryan McElroy, owners and operators
Restaurant, has used the same recipe for decades. The East Aus-
of local café Thunderbird Coffee, the restaurant’s large, square
tin institution, known for its Tex-Mex, has been around since
biscuits were inspired by a biscuit-centric experience they had
1950. Cisco’s round biscuits have a distinct appearance—a dark-
in Nashville. “Somewhat naively, we rolled up expecting a sand-
ly browned top with white edges—which owner Matt Cisneros
wich on a biscuit. It was more like sandwiches meant to be eaten
credits to the history of the recipe. (Cisneros is also the grandson
on a plate with a knife and fork,” McElroy says. “I mean, yeah,
of the restaurant’s namesake, Rudy “Cisco” Cisneros.) “When we
they’re sandwiches, but you can’t really eat them with your hands,
took over the restaurant last year, the biscuit recipe wasn’t even
like the Earl of Sandwich intended. We had to work really hard
written down…we’ve just had the same people making it for so
to make a biscuit that could be handheld as a sandwich.” Though
long,” he says. “If someone wanted to go home and try to recre-
their biscuits are designed to cradle hearty fillings such as bacon, EDIBLEAUSTIN.COM
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