♪♪ -♪ Maíz ♪ ♪ Dulce maíz ♪ ♪ Abundado ♪ ♪ Listo pa' la tierra cultivar ♪ ♪ Maíz ♪ ♪ Dulce raíz ♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -The change in my whole city alone just has been super fast.

There is that much more opportunity.

There is that much more growth.

But if along the way you're not learning from others, we'll just end up becoming selfish people and not give back what was given to us.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Oh, there's a Topo Chico truck.

-Where do y'all want that thing?

-We're gonna -- we're gonna put it back behind those grills over there.

-Hold up, hold up, hold up.

Come, come.

Come on, come on, come on, come on.

♪♪ All right.

Pull, pull, pull, pull!

Okay.

[ Grunts ] You good?

You good?

You good?

-Hell yeah.

-All right.

-Being in the service industry, you know, being in the hospitality industry, you naturally want to be hospitable toward people.

I think what we're doing is in a new way that's -- that's more meaningful than just serving someone food.

Like, we'll -- you know, we want to go above and beyond to serve our community.

It just makes us feel good.

It's kind of like the ethos of starting a restaurant or a small business in the service industry.

I mean, it's all hospitality.

So I think it just kind of comes with the nature of the game.

-Entre tú más pongas -- ayudes a tu comunidad, o seas parte de esa comunidad, o sea, es mejor para todos, ¿me entiendes?

Entonces, si tú haces algo y sabes que la comunidad está bien, entonces tú vives en un lugar mejor.

♪♪ Yo siento que para todos nosotros lo que estamos tratando de crear es mejorar el estilo de vida que tenemos en la ciudad, ¿entiendes?

Entonces, si tú ayudas a la gente que lo necesita, tú no sabes tampoco cuándo vas a necesitar ayuda.

Entonces, el hecho de tener un blueprint de lo que quieres en tu comunidad te ayuda a devolver a esa comunidad en un lugar donde quieras vivir.

♪♪ -O sea, como tengo las tres bolas en el hitch no me acuerdo si es la -- -¿Esto va a ser la two inches?

-Debe ser la misma que estas.

In the neighborhood that I grew up in, all the people that I grew up seeing, you don't see them as much anymore.

Oh, there it is.

Living on the Eastside, I have family that lives in South Austin.

And being a kid, like, going down there would be 15 minutes, tops.

Now you're not seeing downtown for about 15 minutes.

To be able to be from the city that everybody's coming to and everybody's adding to, there is that much more exposure to new things.

But there is that gap, for sure.

♪♪ -Oh, nice.

Yo, this is cool.

-As much as we all try to do what we can, things will keep moving around how they're going to keep moving around, and we just try to do our part.

You could even squeeze one fridge into this countertop here, too, or a prep table.

-We're gonna have one of those big double-door fridges.

-Yeah.

Have to.

-Right there.

-All right, yeah.

Let's hook it up.

It's definitely a every-day learning experience, utilizing the strengths that I have to support and help in any way, shape, or form.

-Keep going.

Keep going.

All right, you're good.

-At the same time, trying to help influence the next generation, especially, you know, raising Amelia.

I have to show her, you know, why we do what we do and why we give how we give.

♪♪ -I think I do like it better presented on a flat plate because it looks more, like, grand.

Doing the same thing, but I think just a little more, double the amount that we did.

-Ayer era lo que -- Como los estaba haciendo así, so se cortaba y -- -Oh, I gotcha.

-So that's why.

-It's important to include other people into the fold, because we always wanted the space to feel like it was everyone's.

-Good work, chef.

-Most of the people that we have on our team, they're super creative.

I want to encourage that and say, like, "What do you want to do that you geek out on and you want to bring into the space?"

Stacy is definitely exemplary of, like, a badass woman, but in a very understated way.

She's always been really creative.

She's painted, she's recently in tattooing.

She's someone that, like, has influenced me, and I think it's like a reciprocal thing where it's like, "Let's not minimize and downplay who we are and the things that we do.

Let's, like, amplify that."

-My name is Stacy Silva, and I'm from Austin, Texas.

It feels really good to be a part of Nixta.

This front part of Nixta used to just be a regular dining area.

Now they want to do an omakase menu, but this fence was just not a look.

-"Flor Xakali" is something right now we are working on.

Flor is my mom's name.

"Xakali" means "home," and we're essentially bringing you into my mom's home.

-Sara was like, "Hey, like, will you come up with an idea for it?"

And I was like, "Yeah."

It's very cute, very fun.

-It's in that space that we've updated and converted out of the beautiful pavers.

All of the corn installations from Emily.

-I'm Emily Reid.

I'm a floral designer, and I own Gypsy Floral.

Can you lift this up with your hand so I can see what it looks like flush?

I kind of like it flush to the ceiling.

Yeah, let's do that.

I started Gypsy Floral in 2011.

When I told Sara what I was doing, she was like, "If you ever need help with anything at all, I'm always on board."

So when she started her own company, I wanted to do the same for her.

Everything that Edgar and Sara do, they want to make sure that it's authentic as possible.

When Sara and Edgar came up with the concept of "Flor Xakali," we really wanted to take elements of corn and create something different.

So we made flowers out of the husks and individually attached them in this installation of over 400 pieces of corn.

-Emily and I go way back.

From the moment I met her, she just, like, exemplifies what, like, a put-together woman is.

She's a designer.

Like, she's an artist.

She can concept things and then go into a space and, like, make it feel like something completely different.

Like, it takes a very specialized skill to do that.

I think women in business, in general, tend to get, like, trampled over.

She was really the one who was like, "You just need to be, like, very clear and firm about what your expectations are and what are the core tenets you're about."

♪♪ Mariela, who is another badass woman, never strays away from that.

-My name is Mariela Camacho, and I own Comadre Panaderia.

"Comadre" means, like, "homegirl," "friend."

Someone that you gossip with.

I mostly use it as a term of endearment in between people that identify as women.

♪♪ ♪♪ Wipe your table, and then we'll go over the buttercream.

My baked goods are kind of like a mess.

It's like, "What's in season?

What do I have available?

What can I afford?"

So it can be really messy.

It can be really confusing.

But I think it's really fun, creative.

And people are, like, ready for a change in pan dulce.

-The things that she creates are bomb.

Everything she makes is delicious, and she's so talented and so creative.

-I met Sara and Edgar through the Internet.

Like, how else do you meet people?

-Hi!

-Hi, ladies.

-Hi!

-Hello.

Good morning.

Welcome back.

Yep, this is it.

-Nice.

-Mm-hmm.

-It's looking good.

-Thank you.

I appreciate your approval.

It means a lot to me.

-[ Laughs ] -We were just fans of each other's work, and I DM'd them, and they DM'd me.

And then I was like, "Hey, can I use your restaurant when you're not open to, like, host my, like, pickups for my preorders?"

And they're like, "Yeah, duh."

We were doing, like, straight-up pop-ups at Nixta, and they were insane.

Like, the line was all the way around the corner.

We were just, like, in a tent outside, sweating.

We've been working really hard towards getting a physical location for the panaderia.

Real estate in Austin is brutal.

So once again, Sara and Edgar advocated for us.

-Currently we are co-sharing a commissary space.

It's been empty for a little while, and Nixta's expanding in there for production.

She's expanding there to elevate the next part of her business, and that comes with its own challenges, too.

-It's so important to have had, like, someone like Sara looking out for us and advocating for us, because if you don't come from money, if you don't come from resources, there is no other way but to have community and people that help you.

-As a young businesswoman, there's a lot of different things to navigate, but I think because she has this very singular vision, it's going to be amazing.

I guess it's not just, like, badass women around.

It's very like creative women.

Everyone is in on it.

We had the vision of Nixta, but that changes with the people that you meet and the experiences that you have.

So, for us, it was just, like, a very natural, organic thing to consider others.

Often those people who are, like, up-and-coming have, like, such a fresh and unique view of everything.

They're not in this, like, pigeonhole, you know?

Like, you're starting to go to restaurants in Austin, and they're all starting to kind of look the same and feel the same.

I don't think you feel that way when you walk into Nixta.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Every single year that has passed, all of our anniversaries, we talk about doing something for it.

We never followed through, and every year that passed, we regret it.

♪♪ -Salsa, lo que hay.

You know who this is?

-Uh, no.

It sounds good.

-This is Frank-- Frankie Ruiz.

Frankie Ruiz.

-Hey, is that all your meat?

-No, I got a little more.

-Okay.

-All right.

-And then, so for this fifth year, this man made it a huge point, "We have to do something," and I felt it, and I was like, "Yeah.

We're --" Yeah, we got to do something that's huge, because celebrating your first year is like, "Okay."

Like, the statistic is, if you're open for three years in a restaurant, you're more than likely going to stay open, right?

Five is a big number, and it's something huge to celebrate.

We made it a point, like, months in advance to start planning, start setting aside money.

And as we're doing that, we realize how cool it is to actually be open for five years.

♪♪ In all seriousness, our five-year, it was huge.

It was huge.

♪♪ And when we're sitting there, like, planning and who all we're going to invite, we're looking at these list of names like, "Damn.

We've -- We've like --" Most of them were people that we've met through Discada.

Seriously, most of them were.

So it was cool to see, like, all these friendships and bonds and connections we've made on paper.

It was kind of stressful.

Like, we realized how hard it is to be a party planner.

Like, there's so many moving parts and, like, just accommodating everybody.

And, like, also, we cooked for everybody.

So it was a lot of work leading up to it.

But the turnout that day was just spectacular.

It definitely, like, reintroduced a lot of appreciation and gratitude.

It gets easy to get lost in the grind every day and forget what you have.

And, like, you know, you forget how to count your blessings.

But that's -- it was very, uh... it was a huge symbol of, like, everything that we've worked for, all the hardships we went through to get to that moment, and that was just, like, a total celebration.

♪♪ -When we came into Nixta, we were already part of that neighborhood, you know?

We live a few minutes up the street on 12th Street.

Directly across the street from Nixta is Section 8 housing, and to the left of us is million-dollar little mini McMansions that are popping up as they are all over East Austin as gentrification continues to spread.

Being very conscious about where we were in East Austin, knowing that it was a historically Black neighborhood, all the businesses that were owned on the street were all 100% owned by African Americans.

-You have to pay homage.

I mean, you got to recognize we're nothing without the history and the culture that was there far before us.

What our responsibility is, is making sure that, in the spirit of Dozen Street, we're doing what we can to make the neighborhood proud.

And we live 10 seconds away from Sam's BBQ.

-They've been there for over 70, 80-plus years.

-And has that great mural -- "You don't need no teeth to eat my beef."

-"Don't need no teeth to eat my beef."

-That's iconic.

-Yeah, I love that logo.

And the people that have walked through that building.

Like, if you walk into Sam's BBQ... -Mm-hmm.

-...you look at the walls, you're just like, "Damn, I am somewhere historic right now."

The place smells like quintessential smokehouse barbecue.

-I'm Brian Mays, known as Sam BBQ.

I'm from Austin, Texas.

787-2-1 and oh 2.

My dad wanted a building.

He won Sam's gambling one night in a gambling game from a man across street, stayed right there.

It was a little bitty building, little bitty house.

My address been here all my life.

This is where I put all my life into, my dedication and everything into this.

-He's someone that we look up to.

They've been there forever.

They're family-owned.

They own their property, and they're steadfast, like, "No, we're not relinquishing this."

-Gentrification move all the Black folks out of here, and then move everybody else in here now.

I'm still here.

I ain't gonna change, boss.

What you want?

-They know that they have something there that's very special.

They're going to hold their feet there, and, you know, have built something that's very special that, you know, Brian can give to his future family members, and they can continue passing on that wealth to each other.

And that's something that's very -- that we admire, that we hope to be able to build with Nixta, you know, on that same level.

♪♪ -I think, at the end of the day, we all have the same goal in mind, which is, like, make nourishing food for... -Our communities.

For our people.

-Yeah, for your neighbors.

-We're all friends.

We're in the same hood.

We all got to respect each other.

We all help each other.

If one needs help, we all help each other.

-There is a fine line between honoring your tradition and your roots making a living and providing a fine-dining approach, especially on the Eastside of Austin.

There's some restaurants that, you know, they just pop up.

They don't care about their neighbors.

But with Nixta, I would say, you know, they're across Section 8 housing.

And so they started a community refrigerator.

-At the height of the pandemic, we started the community fridge that's accessible 24/7 to anyone.

So it's solidarity, not charity.

It's sort of a no-judgment zone.

You can add to it, you can take away from it.

There's actually a lot of good stuff in that fridge.

Of all of the locations now, we were the pilot, the first location.

We're the most heavily trafficked location, as well, so keeping that refrigerator filled is nearly impossible.

♪♪ It will be filled up.

Seven minutes later, you'll go look, it's completely empty.

And that cycles through anywhere between 20 to 30 times a day.

-We just wanted to be good stewards to our community, to our neighborhood, by providing some little joy.

You know, maybe they were out of a job and don't know where their next meal is going to be, but they could roll by the free fridge.

Some of those neighbors in particular, they're, like, Wendell and Princess, like, you know?

I think they were some people that we met early on in the fridge.

-Hi, Princess!

What's up, Wendell?

There's a bunch of meals in here.

They're, like, all the prepared stuff.

-My name is Princess Josie Jackson.

My name is Wendell Cook, and I live across the street in Mount Carmel.

-We saw them, you know, opening and whatever.

We decided to check them out.

They're very polite, they're good people.

-It was really wonderful.

I love it there.

The people always treat you nice, wonderfully.

-Oh, really?

-Just, like, white, purple, and multi-color.

-Ooh.

Yeah.

It's beautiful to get to see and have those experiences that you get to share with your neighbors.

And he knows that he could just walk into a place like Nixta and just, you know, know that we got his back.

-When somebody comes in and needs to use the bathroom, a community member, a neighbor, they're like, "Yep, there it is.

Go ahead."

You know, it's all about the approach that you take.

-Respect is not something that you just get.

You have to earn it.

And for us, we always wanted to be open-handed and open-hearted with the people who are around us.

-They're willing to go to the ends of the Earth to help them.

They're awesome people.

-I believe -- I think that's a blessing to have people like this in the world.

We need a whole lot more people out here like that.

♪♪ -Birdie's is a very special place to East 12th.

They share the same beliefs and same ideologies as we do with food and in business.

-My name's Tracy.

I am the chef and co-owner of Birdie's.

-My name is Arjav.

I am the beverage director and co-owner of Birdie's.

-Birdie's is a neighborhood restaurant.

We cook locally, seasonally, inspired by the seasons here in Central Texas.

Also, regionally, we're inspired by Italy and France, both through cuisine and sensibilities.

♪♪ -After eating Tracy's food and just seeing how magically, amazingly talented she is as a chef, and then seeing the force that Arjav is on the dining room, like, it's just, like, this very beautiful energy that the two of them have.

-I think Birdie's is also, like, a really interesting business model.

It's like something we learned from being in Austin and, in part, was kind of inspired by, like, our first meal at Nixta.

We like to call it fine casual.

Let's serve, like, food that we would at a full-service restaurant, but let's do it in a counter-service setting.

This idea that we wanted restaurants to be really sustainable businesses.

-We're always trying to find ways to be more equitable, supportive of our team, which ultimately we believe, if we're taking care of our team, they're going to be taking better care of our guests.

And we've been really fortunate that the community's been really receptive, and we just keep growing and learning.

-I think one of the things that's, like, really interesting about this neighborhood is that it is historically Brown and Black, and part of, you know, being the new people on the block is just understanding and listening and being, like, empathetic to someone's experience.

-There are countless people that we have interactions with who make us better every day.

And our job and Tracy are definitely a part of that DNA.

-There's a sense of community here.

The cool thing about the way the familia works, if you will, is that there's this level of respect we all have for each other, but I think it goes kind of beyond that to where we're like, we understand that, like -- like, a rising tide kind of lifts all boats and that we're all in this thing together.

-Where do you want to put it?

Where the other one was at?

♪♪ All right, you're clear.

Before I had opened the Cuantos, there were four other concepts that I was going to act on.

And I figured maybe later on down the road, if the possibility was there, I would be able to act on the other four.

-¿La quieres para ahorita?

-For right now, yeah.

-All the people that work for us, they have all brought up to my attention that they would love to have their family come and work for us, as well.

So why not create more opportunity for my immediate team?

So this new concept is called Cuantos Hamburguesas.

We'll be doing Mexican style smash burgers.

-How many -- Cuantos tacos?

-Tres de buche, dos de longaniza.

-Orale.

-Ya está.

-Jose will still general manage both.

My prep cook has a son that started with us, so he's coming on full-time with us there.

So, yeah, we're bringing on family.

-Es que la puerta está poquito -- Aquí se brinca pa'fuera.

No sé si vayas a batallar, pero no creo.

Tiene que quedar así, mira.

-Now that we have a solid, structured team, we have the resources, I figured this was the right time.

I guess it is in the back of your mind.

Whenever you have a business and you're able to create opportunities.

You see the trust people have in you.

-Ciérrame el trunk del carro.

-It was really cool to see that you've been able to create a space where everybody feels proud of what they're doing and where they're working at, and -- I don't know -- it's kind of humbling.

-No, no, no, the big one.

-Cuantos has gotten me to where I'm at now.

I feel like it would be a waste if I don't use whatever voice or notoriety I have to, like, bring that back.

-Atráncala con la llave.

That's something that I feel, like, is still something that I have to do.

-Okay.

-Hopefully that will influence somebody else to do the same.

And who knows who else they may be helping.

If we're able to take care of who is around us, then they will be able to take care of us later on down the road.

♪♪ -It was beautiful.

It all just kind of worked out great, and just seeing everyone have a good time and celebrating Discada was -- it was our first time, and we, like, made up for all the years, definitely.

Being a part of the Taco Mafia, collaboration over competition works way better than pinning each other against each other in these food communities.

You got to uplift the people around you doing the same things as you, because without that, there's really nothing to fall back on.

-I had been wanting to write about the Taco Mafia for a while.

There was the dumpster fire.

Beto was in the hospital.

And then the winter storm.

It wasn't a one-time thing.

It was the culmination of all those things.

-The winter storm was so devastating for the entire state.

I remember waking up, and I look out the window, and there's all this snow, and I could see my breath in the house.

That was so, so cold.

Look at the thermostat, it's under 40 degrees in there, and I have this, like, image of the Titanic where I, like, am imagining us just freezing to death, cuddling in our beds.

And I'm like, "Edgar, wake up!

We have to go find shelter."

[ Wind howling ]