Ruta Maya Cafe espress

You NEED to try this place! Paulina, the owner, makes homemade soups, delicious sandwiches (turkey & brie or the cuban = AMAZING!) oh and try the hibiscus tea! Everything is made with QUALITY ingredients! You can even pay directly with PayPal from your smartphone using PayPal mobile app! So easy and «cool»!

Great coffee, Great service, Great relaxing place to enjoy your coffee and the abundant amount of snacks and other food items that they have. Right next to a creek and lots of fun just enjoying the location with your amazing coffee.

Good coffee
Tasty gluten free pastries
Friendly staff, Paulina is great
Not a huge fan of their breakfast tacos
I like their roast beef sandwich

I went here one day only because Torchie’s was closed. I had the breakfast tacos, and was really surprised at how excellent they are! The woman there said the ingredients are mostly organic and local-​though it doesn’t say so on the menu. They were a little more expensive than some places for the same thing, but I really did feel that the quality of the ingredients was excellent, so it totally made up for it! These may be my favorite tacos in town! Also, the jalapeño salsa was great!

I grabbed some drinks here while waiting for my food from the trailer next door (Wasota). I ordered a 12oz iced vanilla soy latte for myself, and a 16oz iced gunpowder green tea for my beau. It was $ 6 before tip which wasn’t bad at all, and they brought the drinks out to us at our picnic table when they were ready, which was super nice of them.
I have to confess I’d never had Ruta Maya’s coffee before but have always wanted to try it. I was bummed to find that my vanilla latte didn’t actually have any flavor added, and the «iced» was actually hot. So they screwed up the order… still drinkable though and I didn’t mention it to anyone. The coffee was good but fairly run of the mill for a plain latte.
One cool thing was that they apparently don’t usually serve the gunpowder green tea iced, but I ordered it like that so they accommodated it (I had no clue until they brought it out to us and explained this). It took a little longer because they had to steep the tea, etc, but because they had the whole pot, my boyfriend got a full refill of it for free before we left.
All in all — service was good, but I wish I’d gotten my coffee as ordered. I was unimpressed overall but maybe that’s unfair without having eaten any of the food. On the other hand, they are a coffee business first and foremost, so…
The food menu did look promising (several iterations of grilled cheese!) so I’d like to come back, but I’m not one to go out of my way for a sandwich, especially when there are so many other nearby options. We’ll see.

Read: 2 ½ stars. It’s not that I don’t like their tacos — it’s a combination of the flavors just not being what I prefer because I’m a breakfast taco snob and have eaten them daily for a vast majority of my life… in a part of Texas where authenticity was beyond question… and my having experienced some genuinely more authentic offerings in the area — One of the mornings I visited, the kitchen hadn’t been prepped fully so I accepted their offering black beans in my taco instead of potatoes… black beans need to be seasoned lovingly and these were not. When you want some crsip & greasy potatoes in your taco, nothing really substitutes. Plus, the pastry I picked up at the window was beyond stale and flavorless.
That being said — The tacos have never tasted «bad». And more than anything, I’ve always gotten very friendly and personable service, which I’ve appreciated. In the blistering cold one morning the woman even had me go sit in my car and ran my food out to my window without my asking. Very nice. These guys are A-​Okay for a morning where no one would let me into the right lane soon enough on South First — the perfect last-​chance breakfast spot on my way to work.

As the former «duke» of Ruta Maya’s former South Congress location, I saw via their Facebook page that they opened a trailer & had to check it out. Friendly staff (many are the same ones who manned the former location), & their espresso beverages are great as always. Located in the Bouldin Creek Food Court, their trailer is out in the open (unlike the South Austin Trailer Park & Eatery next door) & very easy to spot as you cruise South First toward downtown. The location itself is positioned very well amongst the «cluster» of coffee shops that line south First (from Oltorf St down to Mary St) & just might give some of those places a run for their money!
Ruta Maya also sells their coffee beans from the trailer; a big help for those of us without Costco memberships & who are not able to visit their ABIA locations.
Keeping with tradition, Ruta Maya does have live music on the weekends as well as an open mic night. A first for the food trailer circuit (that I’ve seen).
All in all, the Ruta Maya coffee trailer is nothing like the former location but it’s good to see them back in south Austin. The staff hint of them opening up a new location off South Congress (rumored to be on South Congress & Pickle Rd– accross from their old location) but they very much say that the trailer is here to stay; to compete with ever growing food truck/​trailer scene in Austin.