From steak and eggs to stacked enchiladas, three women ran Marfa’s Old Borunda Cafe for 100 years

Before the Old Borunda Cafe became known for stacked red chile enchiladas and visits from the cast of “Giant,” it was an adobe restaurant called Tula’s. It opened in 1887, when Marfa was four years old and the railroad was bringing workers, ranchers and travelers to town. One account of its earliest menu points to a simple meal: steak and eggs. That detail is among the leads Marfa guitarist and researcher Nick Hurt is following as he traces the lives of the three women who ran the cafe. In his “Marfa History Search” column in the Nov. 13 issue of The Marfa Mimeograph, Hurt starts with the founder, Gertrudis “Tula” Borunda, and asks readers who remember the restaurant or the family to help fill in its history. Big Bend Reporter’s 2023 story, “Birthplace of Tex-Mex: The Old Borunda Cafe in Marfa,” traced the restaurant’s influence through the dishes it became known for.

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