Dear Manuel’s – my family has been eating at the Great Hills Manuel’s for more than two decades. Over the years, Manuel’s has become my kids’ favorite “go to” place to celebrate the smaller wins in life, like the completion of a particularly hard homework assignment, or celebrating a successful guitar recital. It has become a fun family tradition for my kids to say things like, “Oh, Mom, I did my laundry and put away my clothes without any nagging – I think that deserves dinner out at Manuel’s!” or “Mom, I figured out why your email wasn’t synching to your phone – how about we go to Manuel’s to celebrate?” Every time we eat at Manuel’s, we always, always order the tres chiles soup as an appetizer. Everyone gets their own bowl, and we always remember to get a picture of our soups during the meal – preferably an action shot capturing the moment the server is pouring the soup into bowl from the white pitcher. Extra points if we can get one of our happy faces in the background during the pour! I bet we have dozens of pictures of Manuel’s tres chiles soup from the last two decades stored in the cloud somewhere. My kids are now away in college, but when they come home for breaks, we always make at least one trip to Manuel’s. (Sometimes two or three.). I do not know if my kids plan to live in Austin after they graduate, but if they don’t, Manuel’s will definitely be on the “must do” list when they come to town to visit. Long live Manuel’s!