Chico's Tacos was on fire and loyal customers wanted tacos during a 2008 evacuation order
Chico’s Tacos was first opened July 4, 1953, at the 4230 Alameda Ave. location, by local boxing promoter Joe Mora. Perhaps the city's best-known restaurant, Chico’s Taco’s is an El Paso institution. Following is some history of Chico’s Tacos as it celebrates 70 years:
Joe Mora, founder of Chico’s Tacos, was a local boxing promoter and lifelong El Pasoan. Mora opened the Alameda location in July 1953, the Montana Avenue location in 1969, the Dyer Street location in 1971, and the McRae Boulevard location in 1977. The McCrae location closed in 2008 and a new location at 1365 George Dieter Drive opened.
An article on Mora’s death by Cindy Ramirez ran April 1, 1992, in the El Paso Times.
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“His philosophy was that the simple things always work," said his son, Joe B. Mora “He was always a practical man. He knew right from wrong, and he was a very strong family man.”
Mora’s sons are running Chico’s Tacos locations, using the same recipes and business methods that their father did.
“We still use the same approach and we haven’t changed anything,” Joe B. Mora said. “He knew what he was doing and it worked. The recipes and the menu haven’t changed since the first location opened in 1953.”
Mora once opened a Chico’s Tacos in Albuquerque, but he thought it was too hard to run a family-owned business out of town.
“When he became successful he continued to be generous and very loyal to El Paso,” said his daughter, Melinda Mora Carter. “Over the years, Chico’s Tacos became an El Paso institution, and he remained loyal to the city.”
Before he went into the restaurant business, Mora had worked promoting boxing matches in the area. He quit the promotion business in the late 1950s to concentrate on the restaurant business.
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July 19, 2003, El Paso Times:
From a few tacos a day at its beginning, the family business now rolls 19 million tacos a year.
“Chico’s Tacos is an American success story,” said state Rep. Norma Chavez, D-El Paso. The restaurant was founded by Joe B. and Emma Mora to fulfill a dream of proving good food an affordable price.
Three tacos from Chico’s with cheese and Chico’s special sauce still sell for $1.14, Chavez said in the resolution.
Joe died 11 years ago, but Emma Mora and her five children continue with the same menu and recipes. They now have five restaurants, the most recent opening on Montwood Drive on the East Side.
“I’m still the boss, I think,” Emma Mora said, laughing. “They say I am, but I don’t know.”
Brothers Richard, Bernie and William run the restaurants’ day-to-day operations while sisters Carolyn Mora, an accountant, and Melinda Mora Carter, an attorney, consider themselves “silent partners.”
Chico’s Tacos feeds the working class, the middle class and even the rich and famous, including boxing champ Oscar De La Hoya, comedian Paul Rodriguez, and the boy band ‘NSync.
The secret recipe for the famous taco sauce, developed by Joe Mora, has captivated the taste buds of El Pasoans all over the world, Chavez said, referring to a recent CNN report about Fort Bliss troops stationed in Iraq who wanted to see their families – and order Chico’s Tacos.
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Fire at Chico’s Tacos causes tempers to flare
El Pasoans love their Chico’s Tacos so much that when an electrical fire broke out at the Chico’s on Montana in 2008, some customers refused to evacuate before they got their tacos.
Feb. 17, 2008, El Paso Times:
Police were called to an early-morning fire at the Chico's Tacos at 5305 Montana after a crowd of customers who were evacuated became unruly, officials said.
Seven units from the El Paso Fire Department responded to the fire at 2:41 a.m. Saturday at the restaurant. About 30 customers and employees were asked to evacuate the building. Police were called after some customers began arguing with firefighters and demanding their money back.
"We understand the sacrifice they had to make leaving possibly a double order of Chico's Tacos with extra cheese behind, but when an emergency response agency asks you to evacuate, including firefighters and police officers, it's usually because it's an emergency," said Lt. Mario Hernandez, the spokesman for the Fire Department. "So hopefully they'll realize this morning that they overreacted a little bit."
No one was injured in the fire, which was contained at 3:18 a.m.
The fire, which damaged the attic, ceiling and the front of the restaurant, was started by an electrical short in a ceiling light fixture, firefighters said.
Fire officials said total damage to the building was estimated at $45,000.
More: In defense of uniquely El Paso Chico’s Tacos: Letter to the Editor
They wouldn't leave without their Chico's
Of the same incident, columnist Ramon Renteria had this to say:
February 24, 2008, El Paso Times:
Did you worry a little when you heard the news?
Someone said Chico's Tacos had burned and we expected the worst – or at least pictured Chico's as a pile of charcoal-colored rubble.
Hijole. Oh my God and all that.
If you're not from El Paso, you need to know that Chico's is an institution, a shrine for lovers of inexpensive but mouth-watering burgers and round hot dogs, fries and, of course, the ever-popular finger-like taquitos soaked in watery tomato sauce and topped with mounds of heart-clogging cheese.
Tacos so popular that El Paso families ship them on overnight flights to college students or pack them in ice chests and escort them to destinations across the United States as if they are precious cargo.
Some people swear they will never eat that stuff, that the cuisine and atmosphere at Chico's – the blaring jukebox and occasional deaf panhandlers – is too ghettoish. And still others claim that they've lived in El Paso all their lives and never had a Chico's craving.
Whatever! Get a life.
So, the news article in the newspaper confirmed our worst fears.
Yes, the Chico's on Montana had caught fire from an electrical short or something, nothing very serious.
If you're from El Paso or San Eli or Juárez or Horizon City or Socorro or Buena Vista, you had to laugh aloud when the paper said some Chico's Tacos patrons rebelled, refused to leave the joint or were reluctant to leave after they were told to evacuate.
The building's on fire and Chico's loyal customers wanted their tacos or at least a refund, electrical fire in the ceiling or not.
They had to call the police to get the situation under control. Can you imagine the chatter on the police scanner and in the dispatchers' break room after that call came in?
The newspaper also said all this happened around 2:30 a.m.
And if you're an El Paso Mexican and still sober at 2:30 in the morning, you know that all the Chico's in town are overcrowded at that hour, not with sober people like you, but with a bunch of borrachos headed home after a night on the town.
Don't lie. It's true.
So this might explain what sparked the 2008 Chico's Tacos Rebellion. If you put a bunch of drunken people in a burning building with taco orders still sitting behind the counter, then you've got a volatile mix, or, as firefighters might say, a combustible event waiting to happen. Call the police.
Trish Long may be reached at tlong@elpasotimes.com.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Chico's Tacos in El Paso was on fire, but loyal customers wanted tacos
