Elite Cafe
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Faced with decreased business and enormous renovation costs, the brothers decided to sell the restaurant in 1986. David Tinsley, a well-known Texan restaurateur, purchased the Elite Café for approximately $1.3 million and refurbished the restaurant with help from his managing partner, Sammy Citrano. Though the pair recognized the risk in attempting to revive the Elite, they decided to purchase the café and the neighboring burger joint, Health Camp, out of a sentimental attachment to the history of Waco. In 1987, the restaurant reopened with a 1950s theme, including a 1956 baby-blue Chevorlet sitting in front of the restaurant.
In 1993, Citrano left the Elite in order to run his own restaurant, becoming the head of George’s, another Waco favorite. Before leaving the Elite, Citrano recommended that Tinsley trace the history of the café through its photographs and records. In 1996, a historical marker commemorating the restaurant’s contribution to the city was placed at its location on the circle. However, business declined following Citrano’s departure, and in 1999 Tinsley sold the rights to the Elite Café to the Ford Restaurant Group. The Elite Café closed for renovations yet again.
For the next several years, the Elite Café stood empty. In 2003, the Ford Group completed renovations restoring the restaurant to its original feel. The renovations preserved the Spanish-style exterior and honored the café’s history by lining the walls with photographs from its past. The restaurant reopened with a new name: the Elite Circle Grille. For a time, the new owners experimented with a more upscale menu but soon returned to the restaurant’s staples of chicken-fried steak, burgers, and sandwiches.
Elite Circle Grille closed its doors in February 2016, but was purchased several months later by Fixer Upper’s Chip and Joanna Gaines. The couple auctioned off the contents of the restaurant to benefit Mission Waco’s Jubilee Food Market, then began renovations. Because the building was recognized as a historical landmark twenty years ago, efforts have been made to ensure that original character of the building remains intact. The re-envisioned restaurant, named Magnolia Table, opened for business in February 2018. It offers an assortment of breakfast and brunch items on its menu, including its popular buttermilk biscuits—made from a recipie that took Joanna Gaines over a year to develop.
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The Elite Menu
For many years, the downtown Elite Cafe offered food and service twenty-four hours a day. The menu featured typical breakfast items such as waffles, ham, and eggs, while in the afternoon and evening the cafe served home-style dishes such as roast beef, stew, and corned beef and cabbage. | Source: Image courtesy of the Texas Collection, Baylor University
Growing Business
The original Elite Cafe possessed the capability to seat approximately 120 guests around a horseshoe-shaped counter, with a few dining tables on a balcony on the second floor. In the 1920s, the Colias brothers leased the building next door and expanded the cafe into a dining room, increasing the seating capability of the restaurant to around 300 guests. | Source: Image courtesy of the Texas Collection, Baylor University
Inferno
A fire erupted in the kitchen of the downtown Elite Cafe on February 25, 1960, and spread to two clothing stores, an optical firm, and a number of offices above the restaurant. The Waco Fire Department got the fire under control after about three hours, but not before the cafe's roof collapsed. Damages to the 600 block of Austin Avenue were estimated at $1 million. | Source: Image courtesy of the Texas Collection, Baylor University
Ever Enterprising
The Colias brothers constantly experimented with new ideas in order to promote business. For a time, the new location on the traffic circle offered curb service and a coffee shop in order to draw more business. | Source: Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Print Department
Where the Elite Meet to Eat
Many famous visitors have dined at the Elite Cafe on the traffic circle. In the late 1950s, Elvis Presley frequently visited the restaurant while he was stationed at Fort Hood. Today, one of the dining rooms at the restaurant is dedicated to his patronage. | Source: Image courtesy of the Texas Collection, Baylor University
Restaurant Renovation
After purchasing the Elite in 1986, David Tinsley and Sammy Citrano renovated the cafe for approximately $1.3 million. A baby-blue Chevrolet with the Elite logo painted on the side sat out front during renovations, reassuring customers that the popular restaurant would return soon. | Source: Image courtesy of the Texas Collection, Baylor University
Elite Expansion
In 1952, the Colias brothers expanded the Elite space, adding a new wing which they referred to as the “banquet room.” This new banquet room, the brothers told customers, was complete with “wall-to-wall carpeting in a subdued shade of green,” and “gleaming white tablecloths on the new tables that contrast with the rich grey tones of the walls.” "The appearance of this dining area," they boasted, "exemplifies the name Elite.” | Source: Blog post: Hunt, Geoff. "TEXAS OVER TIME: WACO’S ELITE CAFÉ-THE 1952 RENOVATION AND MAGNOLIA TABLE, TODAY," May 21, 2019. | Date: 1952
Elite Update
The Colias brothers introduced a new round of structural and decorative updates to the Elite cafe 11 years into its operation off of the Circle. These updates included new booths, upholstered in a “neutral shade of plastic" (then a modern and trendy material) which, the owners told customers, "blends with the color scheme." | Source: Blog post: Hunt, Geoff. "TEXAS OVER TIME: WACO’S ELITE CAFÉ-THE 1952 RENOVATION AND MAGNOLIA TABLE, TODAY," May 21, 2019. | Date: 1952
Elite Publicity
In order to help spread the word among past customers, future patrons, and the Waco community, the Colias Brothers hired commercial photographer Fred Marlar to photograph the updated eatery in 1952. Here, Marlar captures a view of the restaurant's well-stocked meat freezer. | Source: Blog post: Hunt, Geoff. "TEXAS OVER TIME: WACO’S ELITE CAFÉ-THE 1952 RENOVATION AND MAGNOLIA TABLE, TODAY," May 21, 2019. | Date: 1952
Midcentury Mod Cons
These 1952 updates were not just cosmetic, but included functional improvements to the kitchen as well. Vic Colias stated, “nothing was spared to make it the finest of its kind in the Southwest.” This included: “ceramic tile wainscoting that adds color and facilitates cleaning. The floor was rebuilt to permit daily steam hosing and scrubbing. The kitchen is arranged so that each bit of food travels in the orderly progression from the time it arrives at the back door to until it is served at the diner.” | Source: Blog post: Hunt, Geoff. "TEXAS OVER TIME: WACO’S ELITE CAFÉ-THE 1952 RENOVATION AND MAGNOLIA TABLE, TODAY," May 21, 2019 | Date: 1952
Shopping For Elite Cafe in the 1920s
George Nicholas Colias explains where he bought the food to be served at Elite Cafe. | Source: Colias, George Nicholas, interviewed by Vicki Klaras, January 13, 1987, in Waco, Texas. Baylor University Institute for Oral History, Waco, TX. View the full interviewThe Elite Cafe Menu During the 1920s
George Nicholas Colias explains what they served at Elite Cafe in the 1920s. | Source: Colias, George Nicholas, interviewed by Vicki Klaras, January 13, 1987, in Waco, Texas. Baylor University Institute for Oral History, Waco, TX. View the full interview