The Tamale House #3 on Airport Boulevard, shot in 1999. Image: YouTube
You’ll still find a Tamale House elsewhere in town, but the location most cherished by Austinites on Airport Boulevard was technically the restaurant’s third iteration — though in our experience most people eating there didn’t have a firm understanding of why the sign had a #3 at the end. Opened in 1977 and closed after the death of owner Robert Vasquez in 2014, the Tamale House was arguably one of the main players responsible for Austin’s city-wide affinity for the breakfast taco.
A street view of the Tamale House circa 2009, five years before it closed for good.
Documentarian Susannah Erler filmed the definitive history of the Tamale House #3 in 1999, and two decades later, its portrait of the city’s laid-back, pre-boom, possibly hung over population is one of Austin’s more profound ’90s cultural artifacts:
(h/t to Leyla Shams for sending this our way.)
North Loop homes for sale
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$415,000
939 E 50th ST
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$545,000
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$800,000
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