Sattva was a collective food serving place - a co-op of sorts, I guess.

It started sometime in early 1975, I think, and was first located in the back of a church hall in the 2100 block of San Antonio. Meals were vegetarian, outrageously cheap, fresh and tasty.

At some point, Sattva moved somewhere further up the Drag, again in some sort of either community or church hall.

Always a friendly atmosphere, and menus often dedicated to particular ethnicities or particular interests of the people who happened to be cooking that day...

One thing great about the university area was that it had a ecosystem of food that was matched to the student lifestyle and budget. Here's a brief list that I recall... add in your favorite.

The Egg Roll Stands
- You really didn't want to know the details but these snack bars on wheels were so convenient that they could not be passed up.

The original Trudy's
- It was a ways up the drag but your could count on good food and a bohemian staff. The carne guisada was outstanding.

The Chinese Takeout
- This place was about the size of a modern-day Shortstop burger place. It had a walk-up counter where and picnic tables outside. The most interesting thing was that the staff was 100% middle eastern. Iranian, I think, but they made the best chicken fried rice.

Hansel and Gretel
- This place (now a Trudy's, ironically enough) was one of the meeting places where the cool profs would meet with students for long discussions over pitchers of beer and cold-cuts. It seemed like it was deep in the woods back then.

Alvin Ord's
- Although this was supposd to be a sandwich shop, they served made-to-order breakfast for incredibly low prices. I started many a day there.

Well, strictly I guess it wasn't a bar in the traditional sense...

Posse West was a barely converted gas station at Rio Grande at 24th St that was pretty much a drive through beer store back in the early 70s.

I never had much to do with the beer side of things, but spent a lot of time with Papa Max Bachofen who used to live in one of the car repair bays, sort of a security guard for nights, I guess.

Max was a great old fellow, and my beekeeping mentor of the day. He used to also haul trailer loads of organges up from the Rio Grande Valley to sell - "Real navel oranges, not those painted harlots they sell everywhere else!"

Before the fear-laden days we currently know, our State Capitol building prided itself on being open 24 hours a day. They had a security guard or two but you could drive right up to the building, park near the south door, and walk right in at 2:00am. I know this first hand because of the many times I did just that. It is an amazing building (this was WAY before they added the underground complex) and experiencing it in the still and quiet and solitude will stay with me forever.

It's still there, still beautiful, but essentialy lost to us at this point. Like so many freedoms and other things of beauty.

Talk about spooky... The Alamo Hotel even looked like it was haunted... which it was. Haunted by the ghosts of old Texas politics, haunted by the residual effects of time and social stratification. However, the Alamo Lounge was one of those places where the counter culture seeped into, bit by bit, and took it over. Much like Spellman's, The Lounge was the venue for many a-starvin' Austin picker. Probably the most interesting product of the Lounge is Lyle Lovett. He seemed to be the leader/headliner for a weekly picker session.

In those days, it seemed like the Alamo stood alone at the corner of 6th and Guadalupe. Now, it's hard to imagine that spot could have been so isolated even though isoaltion was what many of it's denizens craved.

Update!
I just watched "Be There To Love Me", the Townes bio-pic, and was reminded that the video for Willie and Merle's "Pancho and Lefty" was shot at the Alamo Hotel during its final days. Watching that video, actually looking "through" the video to see a snapshot of old Austin is very rewarding. Here is an outstanding memoire on the Hotel and the shoot: Pancho and Lefty, Part 1 and Pancho and Lefty, Part 2

I still recall walking into the UGL and seeing Earl's Heisman on display in the lobby. As I understand it, it was the real deal... just like Earl.

Spellman's was a small (very), old (very), rustic (very, very) beer bar off of West 5th St. It was one of the first places that I recall that had near constant live music from local songwriters and pickers. Townes, Blaze, Jubal, etc. I didn't appreciate them at the time beyond the good background music for afternoon beers and evening (mostly feeble) attempts at meeting someone new of the opposite sex.

I recall the guy that introduced me to the afternoon gang at Spellman's saying "These are good people. I've loaned them money when they asked." That impressed me most because we were so broke back then that even the thought of having money to loan was inconceivable.

Back when trail riding was still pretty new, there were world-class trails to ride right here in our Austin City Limits. Forest Ridge stands out as one of the greatest. The entire length of old Spicewood Spgs. Rd. was bordered by cedar woods. These woods were laced with jeep track that was cut by the one-time residents of that area: the Jollyville Cedar Choppers. It was commonplace to enter the trail on the South side and be able to ride for hours and/or miles without retracing your path. You could make it to 3M, veer over to Jester, up to Great Hills, or just stay in the woods on highly technical, rocky paths. The water tower was the most common destination which reminds me of one of the greatest losses that has been incurred due to the zealousness of the nature conservationists.

Let's say your were heading for the water tower, once past it, there was a nice hill that had several highly technical paths to its summit. Once there, the landscape opened up to a beautiful open field about 1/2 acre in size. Who knows when or how it got started but in this open field, there were literally hundreds of rock sculptures, more like found object assemblies, scattered across the landscape. Some of these were random piles of rock yet some were amazingly artistic. They either resembled an intentional figure or had an abstract balance that conveyed beauty. In any case, this glade was one of those "secrets" that insiders enjoyed and the majority of the population had no concept of its existence. That is until the Balcones Canyonlands Conservation folks got involved.

First, fences were erected to deny access to the hill top (hikers, bikers, all denied). Artificially introduced plants were brought it to try to shield/hide previous trails. Weekly work teams spent time on the hill covering, hiding and generally trying to "naturalize" the area. I support conservation efforts and although I don't agree with some of their tactics, saving land as natural vs. developing it all is a good thing.

Elda's was one of those places that was a legitimate "hidden gem". It was the personal residence of a married couple from Mexico, I think, and they opened their home as a restaurant. The other bonus was that they were open on Friday night until past 2:00am. Cabrito and guacamole, amazingly good. The old man taking your order to the old woman sitting at her dinette table and both of them disappearing to the kitchen to cook it, even better. I can't remember where they were located except it was on the East side on a hill.

Inner Sanctum went through a couple or three metamorphoses, always tracking what was cool in Austin. Progressive Country to Punk. Inner Sanctum had it all when you wanted it. They also provided an essential service to the local bands of the day by being about the ONLY retail outlet for those rare events known as recordings by Austin bands.