On a frigid Friday afternoon, La Fonda El Taquito is buzzing with customers. Every table inside the Mexican restaurant is filled, and groups awaiting a seat chat by the bar and small stage, margaritas in hand.
“For those who haven't experienced it, it's sometimes hard for them to understand what a restaurant like this means in the community,” says Gene T. Chavez, a longtime customer and friend of the owners’ family. Chavez says he’s been coming to the restaurant since its first location was established just up the street.
“As I look around, there's a lot of familiar faces, people I've known over the years,” he says. “And it's always great, like greeting family, when you come here.”
La Fonda El Taquito, at Summit Street and Southwest Boulevard, has been a fan favorite for more than three decades, with its owners, sisters Sandra Medina and Maria Theresa Medina Chaurand, serving up iconic dishes like chicken soup, Mexican rice and smothered burritos.
But earlier this month Sandra and Maria, who took over the restaurant from their parents, announced the restaurant is closing, and its last day of business is set for Jan. 31. The sisters are ready to retire.
“It's been crazy, overwhelming — my goodness,” Sandra says. “It's so exciting to see all these people. I never thought it was gonna be like this, you know, but it is a great feeling for all of us.”
She takes short breaks from La Fonda’s small kitchen to visit with customers and pose for pictures.
“Working in the kitchen is so hard. It’s not a breeze all the time, something always happens,” Sandra says.
“Our bodies are talking to us,” Sandra says. “I'm done. I'm tired. My body said, ‘Sandy, that's it.’”
Ever since the announcement, business has been nonstop, the sisters say. Though La Fonda has only been open from Thursday to Sunday since the pandemic, each day has been lively with customers hoping to get one last taste.
“We were raised here. We know the community — nothing but friends here in the Westside,” Sandra says. “This is the Mexican ‘Cheers.’ Everyone is welcome.”
A foundation, a relocation, a new generation
Agustin “Chino” Medina and his wife Teresa Garcia Medina, who grew up on the Westside, opened their restaurant as El Taquito in 1978, at 17th and Summit streets. The neighborhood has long been an enclave for Mexican and Latino immigrants. As the name suggests, the restaurant was small, with a countertop and a handful of seats.
That’s when Sandra, known to friends and family as Sandy, began working alongside her parents. At 18 years old, she manned the grill.
“My grandmother would come and help sometimes, peel garlic, wash baskets,” she says. “It was really cool. I miss those days.”
For customers like Chavez, who says he was often helping out at the nearby Guadalupe Centers’ English language program, the little taqueria was a great lunchtime getaway.
“I could sit there at the counter, watch them make the tortillas and the food, and visit with them,” he says.
The menu was smaller back then: taquitos, Mexican chili, carnitas, carne asada, rice and beans. The family made tortillas from scratch, a hallmark of their cooking along with Teresa’s enchiladas. (The family’s tortilla business, El Taquito Tortilleria, will continue operating in Kansas City, Kansas, after La Fonda closes.)
El Taquito closed in 1989, but the restaurant popped up in Westport for a while before returning to the current Westside location, along Southwest Boulevard. With a new name, La Fonda El Taquito, control of the restaurant passed to Sandy and Maria.
Head chef Sandy adapted recipes passed down from their parents. Agustin was from León, in central Mexico, and Teresa’s parents were from the state of Jalisco.
Making those recipes over the years — like the chicken soup, with rice, chicken, onion, and cilantro swimming in a hearty golden broth — reminded many customers of their own family’s recipes.
“Coming back and tasting a little bit of their mother, it brings tears to their eyes,” Maria says. “Food feeds the soul — it really does. And can also mend the heart in moments when they need it. It's a good feeling.”
One of La Fonda’s best sellers, Maria says, are the ground beef fried tacos. The dish is emblematic of the family’s Mexican American roots, and all the ways immigrants adapt their traditional dishes in America.
“A lot of the condiments and a lot of the stuff that they were able to get in Mexico, we couldn't get here, so they would substitute,” Maria says. “So now they're ground beef, deep fried.”
Maria says the preparation method came from their great grandmothers and grandmothers, who would fry tacos for fiestas to raise money for the church. When each tortilla was properly plump with fillings, the abuelitas would put toothpicks through them so nothing spilled out — a trick they brought from Mexico. The fried taco was then topped with shredded lettuce, salsa and Parmesan cheese instead of queso fresco (Parmesan was cheaper).
“People from the community come here to eat, and it reminds them of back in the day,” Maria says, “reminds them of their mother, their grandma, their tía.”
“Somebody in their family was cooking and making the same thing we were, because they all worked together when we would have these fiestas. So they were learning how to cook with each other,” she says.
‘Everybody knows where La Fonda is’
As the clock winds down on her chances to taste that Medina family history, Lauren Gonzalez waits for two orders of the chicken soup to go — one to eat right away and another to freeze and eat later, when ordering a bowl at La Fonda won’t be possible. Gonzalez has come here at least once a week for the past seven years.
“It's good food, the people are wonderful,” Gonzalez said. “It's really sad that they're closing but I get it. Everybody needs to take care of themselves and get a break and enjoy life, because life is short.”
“It's just a fun place, like home. Everybody knows where La Fonda is,” she says.
In the few weeks since they announced La Fonda’s last day, the Medina sisters have felt an outpouring of love from their community, Maria says. It’s confirmation of their importance to the neighborhood for decades.
“I think people felt that when they saw this, they were in the Westside. They felt like a family from the Westside has a business here, that lived here all their life and made it successful,” Maria says.
“The community and the people that were around us, and all the people that we knew that had deaths in their family — we always were there for them because they were part of our community,” Maria says. “So I hope that's what we leave. And memories, a lot of memories.”
