Sattva

On October 12, 1970, this notice appeared in Austin’s underground newspaper, The Rag.

A new restaurant in Austin, SATTVA, at San Antonio and 21^st, just around the corner from the Drag in the Hillel building, non-profit, run completely by members of the Austin community. Good food, macrobiotic and vegetarian cheap, vegetables and rice 35c, raw milk 10c a glass, good whole wheat bread, healthy, filling food, and good people. Open Monday thru Thursday from 11:00 AM to 8:30 PM closed on Friday. On Saturday, Free lunch from 12:00 to 1:00, dinner, not free from 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM, open Sunday from 3:00 to 8:30. Come by.

Sattva was a collectively run vegetarian restaurant. It was first established in October 1970 at the Hillel Student Center at 2105 San Antonio, but that arrangement was coming to an end when I got involved. I approached Bob Breihan, who ran the Methodist Student Center, about housing the noon hour restaurant.

Bob was blunt. “The only time I ate there,” he said, “I got terrible diarrhea.”

Despite his own digestive reluctance, he agreed and we moved about three blocks north into the Methodist Student Center kitchen at 2434 Guadalupe in the fall of 1971.

My strongest memory is garlic.  The first thing we did in the morning was mince garlic. We peeled the skin off cloves and chopped until we had a mound — aromatic and translucent.  After that we chopped a lot of onions. The garlic and onions went in the beans, the soups and the casseroles. Beans were essential, and rice.  The combo bowl was a real bargain. We usually had a soup, a tub of salad you could dish out with tongs, and a main entree like squash casserole, eggplant Parmesan or vegetarian enchiladas.

One morning, the health inspector paid a visit. He looked in on this somewhat bedraggled group of long hairs and asked: “Who’s the top banana here?”

Jay McGee, who wore a pony tail down his back and had a mustache like Yosemite Sam, gave the perfect response in his gravely, low voice: “We ate him for lunch.”

The inspector did his job, checking to see if we stored our onions or potatoes off the floor, looking for signs of rodent or roach droppings, seeing what we used as a cleaner. We passed inspection and he went on his way.  Sattva closed in December 1976.

Delta Diner

The Delta Diner was a short-lived spin-off from Sattva. It was located in the Campus Guild housing co-op at 2804 Whitis, a building that was constructed in 1941 by co-op residents and condemned in 1972. We served dinners there. Charlotte Pittman, Lori Hansel, Vernell Pratt, Michael Lutes and I were among the workforce. Vernell wrote the Delta Diner song and we’d serenade our dining guests.

(to the tune of “Nothing Could be Finer Than to Be in Carolina”)

 Nothing could be finer than to eat at Delta Diner in the evening.

Nothing could be greater than to eat a raw potato at the Diner.

And while you’re eating real good food and having a ball

You can meet with all your friends and plan the state’s fall

Nothing could be finer than to eat at Delta Diner in the evening.

We specialized in names for our entrees like “Squash the State Casserole.” The Delta Diner was open during the first shuttle bus strike when the drivers were organizing against stiff owner opposition to be represented by the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU). We offered to feed all striking shuttle bus drivers and their families for free, and many took us up on the offer. They won their contract in February 1972. I was in San Francisco in the summer of 1973, after the Delta Diner’s demise, when my mother sent me a clipping from the Austin American Statesman. The co-op building burned down on July 4, 1973.