Twenty-five years after an underage drinking case turned a night at an Austin Tex-Mex restaurant into national news, Jenna Bush Hager is joking about the incident — with one small twist.
The “Today” co-host joined a viral social media trend in which people pretend to be interviewed for a dramatic documentary, writing that she was preparing for a hypothetical Netflix film about “that one time at El Arroyo when I was 19.”
The joke gets one detail wrong. The incident actually happened at the original Chuy’s on Barton Springs Road in May 2001, not El Arroyo.
Bush Hager, then a 19-year-old University of Texas freshman whose father had recently become president, tried to order a margarita using another woman’s identification card, according to police. Her twin sister, Barbara Bush, was also cited for underage alcohol possession after restaurant employees called Austin police.
The Chuy’s incident came about five weeks after Jenna Bush Hager was cited during an underage drinking enforcement operation at a Sixth Street bar, where undercover officers found her drinking beer.
The back-to-back cases drew national attention as media closely followed the lives of the president’s twin daughters during the opening months of George W. Bush’s administration.
Bush Hager later pleaded no contest in both cases. A judge ordered her to complete community service, attend alcohol education classes and a victim-impact panel, pay court costs and temporarily surrender her driver’s license.
Despite the incident taking place at Chuy’s, El Arroyo later embraced the story. During Bush Hager’s 2024 visit to Austin with former “Today” co-host Hoda Kotb, the restaurant displayed a message on its famous marquee marking 24 years since it had supposedly served her margaritas.
Bush Hager laughed off the sign on air while teasing Chuy’s.
“You had your opportunity and you blew it,” she said.