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.

Relatively late in the old Austin scheme of things but perhaps the ultimate expression of what it all means to keep it weird- The Gibby Haynes and Robbie Jacks Show on 101X!

Never heard it? Never knew about it? Claim that you have Austin cred? Don't think so.

Here's a bit to get you started:
Clip1
Clip2

So Austin. So strong. So early in the morning. How did they do it?

Who's with me here? I recall going to the Handy Andy and looking over the beer cooler many-a-time. The lowest cost item there was a case of Castle beer which I think was a Pearl brewery productupdate! see comment. I shudder to think what Pearl did to save costs on that case of beer but I always enjoyed the mad-libs style puzzle under each and every bottle cap... and the beer.

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.

Austin was well known for it's hippie culture. Hippies on the drag, Hippie houses, Hippie Hangouts, Hippie events (Eeyore's party is a direct descendant of hippie happenings.) What was interesting was how everyone seemed to get along. It was common to see Hippies mingling with the rest of the population and everyone getting along fine. This is another huge indicator of how modern society has lost the tolerance that once made it strong.
Update: I recently took a stroll through one of the ancient hippie neighborhoods (just west of downtown... you know where) and I was pleasantly surprised to see houses and yards that could pass for 1979 in Austin. Old school Austin bomemia has survived!