El Mercado

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The El Mercado is a Tex/Mex restaurant on South 1st Street a short bike ride from where we stayed while visiting Austin. There's another version of the El Mercado on Lavaca up by the University. Austin has lots of good Tex/Mex restaurants and the El Mercado is no exception but we were there for the music on "Mystery Mondays".

Mystery Mondays is a regular Monday event at the El Mercado hosted by Christine Albert. While we were there it was co-hosted with Jimmie Dale Gilmore. Every week they would have a "mystery guest" to accompany them and they'd play a couple of sets. Mostly an unrehearsed grab-bag of music shared by friends. And often they'd bring a friend out of the audience on stage to sing a few songs.

We stumbled onto this regular event when I saw a brief mention in the local newspaper. It's not advertised in the Chronicle, the local bible to what's happening. Apparently Christine Albert and Sarah Elizabeth Campbell had hosted a long running event of exactly this sort at Artz Ribs on Lamar (we happened to see Sarah at Artz many years ago). The regular Monday event moved to El Mercado when Artz closed a few years ago. Jimmie took over Sarah's role as cohost when she passed away in December of 2013 after a battle with cancer.

It's a fine music tradition on Monday nights. There's good food, if you're hungry. And the entrance is free -- they pass a tip jar. We enjoyed it so much we made it our regular Monday night event.

If you're in Austin, check out Monday Mystery nights at the El Mercado on South 1st. You will be pleasantly surprised.

Here's a photo album.