Dolores Mendez was in crisis. A business partnership with her sister had collapsed. The staff from the restaurant she’d opened had fled. The $15,000 she had invested into the start-up was at risk.
Wounded and hurt, Mendez shared her plight with a school principal at St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church. “Don’t give up,” the principal told her.
Mendez returned to her 18-table Southside restaurant, across from the Union Pacific SoSan Yard. Soon after, people walked in and asked for work. She hired dishwashers, cooks and waitresses. Mendez Cafe stayed open.
On June 19, Mendez Cafe will celebrate its 40th anniversary on Bartholomew Avenue. Eleven days later, Mendez will turn 80.
“As long as she’s able to get up and drive over here she will, even if she’s 100,” said Vanessa Mendez, Dolores’ 42-year-old daughter and the cafe’s line server. “I’m not going to tell her to stop until she’s ready.”
A single mom, Vanessa Mendez will celebrate Mother’s Day with her three children at Dolores’ home. Since Mendez Cafe is closed on Sunday, it will be a day of rest for the mother and daughter who work long and hard to stay in business.
“We will just relax,” she said. “My mom needs it. She’s always on the go.”
Dolores Mendez possesses the energy of a young professional launching a career. When the economy turns or employees leave, she takes on their work in addition to her own: preparing signature items, such as carne guisada tacos ($3.99 each), huevos rancheros with beans and potatoes ($5.99) and a cheese enchilada plate ($8.69).
“We are down to two waitresses,” she said. “We can’t afford to hire people. I cook, I wash dishes, I make tortillas. We’re just trying to pay the bills.”
They hope to collect votes on the Southside Taco Trail, a Live From The Southside campaign to determine the area’s best tacos. Located in the 78211 ZIP code, Mendez Cafe is competing against a host of restaurants, taquerias, pop-ups and mom-and-pops in Districts 3, 4 and 5.
“Best” categories for voters to weigh include breakfast tacos, carne guisada tacos, bean and cheese tacos, barbacoa tacos, salsas, tortillas and hidden gems. Voting ends June 1.
The Mendez Cafe is old school. It has no website and had virtually no social media presence until the Southside Taco Trail, which launched on May 1. Business mostly comes by word of mouth but also from occasional media coverage and raves on Facebook, Instagram and X.
“We pretty much rely on established business customers that come in,” Dolores Mendez said. “Our old customers and their children and their children’s children. That’s how we keep going.”
With her husband Guadalupe Mendez, an electrical inspector at Kelly Field, she opened the cafe in 1986 to support her sister, a struggling restaurant worker.
Within months, the sisters became estranged. All the employees left the cafe. Dolores Mendez filled the void with her husband, who cooked, washed dishes and ordered merchandise. As the cafe teetered, people needing jobs showed up and she put them to work.
Having learned to cook from her mother and grandmother, Dolores Mendez fashioned breakfast and lunch plates that kept customers coming. She learned the rest of the business — service, operations, financial management — on her own.
Vanessa Mendez found her way into the cafe around age 3. By 15, she was working the cash register. In the modest eatery across from the tracks, her mother taught her how to wash dishes, wait tables and prepare every item on the menu.
“I never thought I’d learn to make tortillas or cook anything my mom made,” Vanessa Mendez said. “I knew she needed help. I went in there to start picking up money. Now I know how to run the kitchen and do everything my mom does.”
Dolores Mendez and her sister eventually reconciled. The sister returned to the cafe and worked for a year. She passed away two years later, about a decade ago.
The Mendez Cafe has entered a new era. Guadalupe Mendez, now 88, is recovering from neck surgery and can no longer help.
From time to time, however, the third generation contributes. Vanessa Mendez’s son, Ismael, 18, and daughter, Ilias, 13, bus tables. Sophia, 7, helps make tortillas. “They are all part of this,” she said, “which has been my whole life.”
What first began as a mission to support her sister has evolved, Dolores Mendez says.
“My purpose is to help my daughter,” she said. “For all these years, I’ve been here for her to help with expenses for her children. She does earn a wage but she’s a single mother. Her oldest is going to graduate from high school. Vanessa has been working here to get her kids to where they need to be.”
If Dolores is driven to support her daughter, Vanessa is determined to become like her mother.
“My mom is the hardest working woman I know,” she said. “I always say, ‘If I could grow up to be half the woman my mother is, with her strength, well I’m just striving to be like her. I love being here with her and she’s always been there for me and my children. My mom is my biggest supporter and I try to be hers.”
