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La Perla - Official website
Film on La Perla Bar to highlight East Austin culture
food location staff
The old pay phone inside the small East Sixth Street Tejano bar La Perla doesn’t work anymore, but it still hangs on the wall — now just a memory of a time when a ring might have nudged husbands to scoot home earlier than they hoped.
In an effort to keep the history of the neighborhood and bar alive, filmmakers Daniel Reyes, Erik Mauck and producer and graphic designer Paul Del Bosque have captured the stories behind La Perla for the upcoming short film “Cantina: An Eastside Documentary.”
About 15 years ago, Costilla began managing La Perla and some regular customers worried he’d change the music in the bar’s popular jukebox or create a new look for the bar, but Costilla decided to keep most things like they’d always been.
Longtime Tejano bars like La Perla played an important role in East Austin’s history.
Throughout the decades, Chicano politicians knew they had to stop at La Perla and other East Austin Tejano bars while on their cantina circuit to chat with constituents and earn votes.