Janie and Matt Martinez founded El Rancho on Austin's Eastside in 1952, with her in the kitchen and the genial former Golden Gloves champ greeting guests in the front of the house. Basing their operation on her family recipes and his gift for hospitality, the couple built a restaurant that is one of Austin's most enduring success stories.

During its first thirty years on the Eastside, El Rancho expanded several times and developed such a devoted following that the food was likely to be found everywhere from  
Lyndon Johnson's White House to the DKR Memorial Stadium press box. Legislators, college students, and local families all flocked to dine there. An Eighties real estate boom in Downtown Austin inspired the move to the beautiful, hacienda-style building that has been home to the restaurant since 1986 (2613 S. Lamar).

Reviewed by Virginia B. Wood, Fri., May 18, 2012 Austin Chronicle

http://www.austinchronicle.com/food/2012-05-18/matts-el-rancho

Cathy Martinez Kreitz represents the second generation of her family to oversee operations at Matt's El Rancho. She was truly born into the business. "I wasn't actually born at the original restaurant, but my parents did stop by there on the way home from Seton to show me to Lupe [Redkey, one of the original waitresses] and the rest of the staff," she says fondly. Her parents, Matt and Janie Martinez, are the legendary local restaurateurs who founded a company based on Tex-Mex food and family hospitality that became one of Austin's longtime business success stories. Matt's celebrates its 60th anniversary this July...


A link to the interview by Foodwaystexas
http://foodwaystexas.com/oralhistory/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Matts-El-Rancho-Transcript-FINAL2.pdf