My table in the back at the Santa Elena Cantina

I walked into this place about two years ago when I needed a place to get away from the rest of the world that existed just across the Rio Grande River from Lajitas , Texas where I was working a riding permit contract for a rancher out of Marathon, Texas.
It seemed like the right thing to do at the right time. I have not been disappointed since.

The Santa Elena Cantina is owned jointly by two gay fellas who once took one of the river rafting trips that are so popular down this way. They wound up getting hopelessly lost on the Mexico side and if they had not been fortunate enough to crossed paths with a old mexican man named Santos, they would still be lost and presumed missing by their friends back in San Marcos, Texas. They had originally been partners in the business sense in a thriving antiques store. They are now border-town cantina owners.

They emptied their respective bank accounts of disposable cash holdings and bought this place from a man in Monterrey for the sum of $2500.00 U.S. Dollars and completely refurbished it in what they proudly and fondly refer to as Southwestern Art Deco. In my humble and relatively ensconced Texas Hill Country opinion, they have one or two too many paintings of naked Mexican gals and Vegas Elvis paintings on velvet for my liking. But its a cool place to come to and enjoy welcome respite from the heat, listen to Kristofferson or John Prine or Dwight Yoakum on their Wurlitzer Jukebox that they had shipped all the way from some roadhouse in Louisiana. Also they serve Shinerbock beer in buckets of ice. How could I not appreciate a place that makes Shiner Beer available to its patrons.
Like I said before, I have not been disappointed since the first afternoon I walked in to the place.
The Santa Elena Cantina is where I can reflect on my life as a cowboy, of the places and people that I have come to know, of the women I've lost in love and hear songs that remind me of those women. It's also where I do some of my best thinking outside the confines of my saddle, which also provides me a place to retrospect and consider my life and how much time I have left before my cowboy riding slips away.
For readers here, the Santa Elena Cantina will be a place to find a story, hopefully an entertaining story that maybe can be carried with them on their journeys. It may or may not work out for every reader, but the doors open here, the beer is cold, my table in the back always ahs a chair you can side up to and you're always welcome to visit.
Thanks for stopping by and don't be bashful about sharing a spot her in the back again soon.

thelostcowboy