by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Zac Salem, who has previously contributed a pair of posts to this blog on music by Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in 1920s and 1930s Los Angeles, has another excellent one to share on early Mexican restaurants in San Francisco, which provided an opportunity to put together this post on eateries in Los Angeles during the last quarter of the 19th century.
This is something of a prelude of an earlier discussion on this blog related to an early Mexican restaurant, although a claim cited from a 1977 Los Angeles Times article that the “Spanish Kitchen” owned by Ismael Ramirez may have been the first in the city is not the case. In 2019, Gustavo Arellano, who has written extensive on Mexican food history, including a 2012 book, Taco USA, penned a piece for the Times which observed that, in the paper’s inaugural issue of 4 December 1881, there was an add for Hilario Preciado’s “Mexican Restaurant.”
It turns out there were some predecessors, so this post will look into some of the history of early Mexican restaurants in the Angel City and environs from 1875-1900 and then we’ll follow with Zac’s excellent piece, with the hope that these make a meaningful contribution to how the development of these eateries came about in both California metropolises at around the same time.
A review of Los Angeles newspapers from the inauguration of its first, the Star, in spring 1851 for nearly a quarter century failed to locate a reference to a restaurant serving Mexican food, though, of course, there may well have been some. The first found example of any retail food vendor is an advertisement from the recently launched La Crónica, a Spanish-language paper, in its tenth issue from 6 July 1872. The proprietor, notably, was a woman, Fabiana Olmeda de Oropeza, a widow who’d resided in the Mexican state of Nayarit before migrating to the Angel City, though it does not appear the enterprise continued for very long. In addition to bread and cakes, Señora Oropeza mentioned that she offered empanadas (a pastry usually filled with cheese, meat and vegetables) and “tostados.”
The Barnum Restaurant, which dates back to 1867, was taken over at the start of 1875 by Anton Perpich and B. Circoletti, though the latter soon bowed out and Perpich, who had nearly three decades of experience became sole proprietor. One of the eatery’s early notices in La Crónica, from 13 March informed readers that, “pastoral” apparently meaning those from rural areas,
Lovers of the pastoral will appreciate knowing that Mexican-style enchiladas will be served on Sunday at the Barnum Restaurant.
In August, Perpich sold to Horacio Marteen and Jeremiah Redding, who were likely the first Black restauranteurs in the Angel City with Marteen mentioned as a cook in his native Mississippi and there was no further mention of Mexican food offered there. Just days later, however, the telegraph related news of the failure of the Bank of California, the state’s largest, in San Francisco as a Virginia City, Nevada silver mine stock bubble burst, and a financial panic erupted. By the end of the year, Marteen and Redding found a buyer for the Barnum, though Perpich operated a restaurant with the Barnum name as late as 1886.
What looks to be the first Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles was El Cinco de Mayo, styled a Fonda Mexicana, or Mexican Inn, and referring to the victorious Mexican Army’s defeat of French forces in 5 May 1862 in the Battle of Puebla, which turned the tide of the revolt against the short-lived regime of Emperor Maxmilian. The 6 October 1877 edition published an advertisement for the eatery, located on Upper Main Street near the Plaza and Sonoratown, a largely Latino area. The proprietor was another woman entrepreneur, Ramona Torres de Sopeña, whose husband Vicente operated the La Reforma Mexicana bakery that opened in July 1875 and with whom she had five children.
Señora Sopena’s endeavor, which promoted “Attentive Service, Excellent Meals, [and] Impeccable Cleanliness” and added that enchiladas and tamales were available every Thursday, Sunday and Monday, was short-lived. About a month after she launched her enterprise, El Clamor had an ad for a new restaurant, called El Paraiso (The Paradise), opened by actor and theater company head Anastacio Angulo, a native of the port city of Guaymas in the Mexican state of Sonora.
Angulo’s ad had a good amount of text, including:
This establishment specialized in authentic Mexican-style meals for the modest sum of 25 cents. I assure my friends and the general public that they will find here the attentive service, efficiency, and cleanliness that characterize a high-quality establishment.
Further, El Paraiso let potential customers know that they could enjoy menudo and tamales on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, while enchiladas were available each night, so Angulo concluded, “I invite my friends and the general public to visit, assuring you that you will be satisfied,” including for what may have been something of a general innovation among Angel City eateries, “orders for home delivery, which will be fulfilled promptly.” Angulo appears to have operated only for a few months, until February 1878, and he acted in at least one local performance before he died the following year.
Four months after El Paraiso looks to have been shuttered, another Upper Main Street location was chosen for El Progreso, situated just north of the landmark Plaza Church, but apparently previously operating. Librada R. de Esquer was the owner and La Crónica of 26 June 1878 remarked to its readers that,
For some time, Los Angeles has lacked an establishment of this kind where one could enjoy a good Mexican meal; we therefore believe that Esquer’s restaurant will become one of the city’s popular establishments.
The advertisement from that issue remarked on the “Grand Reopening of the Old El Progreso Restaurant” with Señora Esquer implored by former customers to do this. She promoted her “famous tamales, prepared in the authentic style,” while recommending “well-furnished private rooms for ladies and gentlemen, as well as exquisite dishes.” Prompt home delivery, too, was offered “at very reasonable prices.”
Nothing could be located about Señora de Esquer, other than that she was most recently a resident of Sonora, from which many Angel City residents came—hence the name Sonoratown or the area of town in which these eateries were located. The ads ran only for about two months at which time, evidently, Esquer closed the place.
By Christmas 1878, around which time La Crónica ran an advertisement for a boarding house at which residents could get Mexican and Spanish dishes, including enchiladas and tamales on Thursdays and Sundays, so it could be seen as quasi-public, El Progreso changed hands with merchant Felix Nuñez, a native of the Sinaloa metropolis of Mazatlán and who died in October 1879, taking ownership and Rosalino Diaz, who was a carpenter by trade, as the operator. An ad noted that American food would be served there, as well, while on Sundays and Thursdays customers could enjoy enchiladas, menudo and tamales.
Yet there was soon another female proprietor, Teresa Romo de Teran, who married butcher Jesús Teran in 1865 (though that year and a decade later, he took out notices that she’d left the home and that any debts contracted by her were not his responsibility), so his profession made sense for her decision to become a restaurateur.
As did her predecessors, Señora Teran promoted, in ads commencing in late May 1879, her special offerings of albondigas soup, chili con carne, enchiladas and tamales on weekends “as well as other [items] that whet your appetite the moment you taste them.” Notably, she informed readers that,
The kitchen department is managed by the establishment’s original founder, whose services I have secured. My patrons will find great cleanliness, attentive service, and everything of high quality promptly served and reasonably priced.
The question is who the owner of El Progreso was before Teran and it may be that it was Librada Soquer. In any case, “simple” meals could be had for a quarter, while “double meals” were, naturally, twice the price, while private rooms for women could also be had and “home delivered meals are available.”
There was another turning over of the place in October 1879, as Hilario Preciado put the words “CHOP HOUSE” at the top of his ads, so that, in addition to offering Mexican good, there would be dishes that would presumably include steaks, pork chops and the like, but also operate with different hours. The new owner informed La Crónica readers that,
Having purchased the El Progreso Restaurant formerly belonging to Don Féliz Nuñez, I have made improvements and offer service in the Mexican style. I also wish to announce that my establishment is set up in the style of a CHOP HOUSE and therefore will be open night and day. Meals are served cooked to order. I invite my friends and the general public to pay me a visit.
Preciado was born in México, possibly in the city of Hermosillo in Sonora, in 1838 and migrated north at age 17 with the earliest reference to him in Los Angeles dating to 1869 when he registered to vote in the county. He was married to María Jesús Alvarado (they may have been connected to the Pomona area and the Rancho San José there, as there is a Preciado Street that intersects with Old Settlers Lane, on which is the Alvarado Adobe) and they had two sons during the late 1870s after losing their eldest boy when he was a toddler.
After about a year, in October 1880 (the federal census of that year listed him as a cook and residing on Upper Main Street, likely in the same adobe building as contained the restaurant, Preciado took out an advertisement from the Los Angeles Herald of the 30th, to announce (it is notable that this was in the English-language press) that,
The Mexican Restaurant
Formerly situated on Upper Main street, Teran house, has been removed to the HOTEL DE PARIS Quarters, Signoret Block, NO. 14 MAIN street . . .
We always keep ready “Enchilados” and “Tomales.” Meals “a la carte.” Satisfaction Guaranteed.
A prior post here, highlighting a photo of the French-born Felix Signoret, who came to Los Angeles in the 1850s, worked as a barber, owned a saloon and was a Common (City) Council member and county supervisor, as well, apparently, as a vigilante involved in the December 1870 lynching of fellow French native Michel Lachenais.
By 1875, he was owner of the Hotel de Paris, just a short distance south of the former restaurant location and almost across Main Street from the Pico House hotel, the building of which still stands today off the southwestern portion of the Plaza. It may be that Preciado’s move to a relatively new brick building and just outside Sonoratown was a way for him to attract a broader clientele and, by advertising in an English-language paper, reach more than Latinos.
Also notable was that Preciado was able to keep his eatery opened longer than any of his Mexican restaurant predecessors, though we’re talking a matter of a few years. Restaurants are hard to make successful generally, but the last half of the Seventies, from 1876 to 1880, was a period of a severe economic downturn that was not just triggered by the financial panic referred to above (and which included the Temple and Workman bank as the biggest business bust), but was part of what is known as the Long Depression, which affected the nation from 1873.
There may be a variety of reasons why the several Mexican restaurants in Los Angeles of that period failed to last longer than months, but economics seems to be among the major ones, especially for Latinos, primarily working-class, who were almost certainly among the hardest to be hit by recessions and depressions. Preciado’s move to the south may well have been an attempt to mitigate against risk by trying to diversify his customer base and given his many years in the Angel City restaurant industry—which will refer to in the next part of this post—he could have had a better sense of how to operate his eatery than his predecessors.
Join us then for part two as we take our narrative into the 1880s, as the local economy started to improve, then led to the great Boom of the Eighties, and the Angel City’s Mexican restaurants gained somewhat more attention in the English-language press.