Si Senor – Iguanas Comes to J-town
[caption id="attachment_6662" align="alignright" width="300" caption="This plush interior at Maxwell's will become Senor Iguanas"] [/caption]
Eventually, every restaurant location in this city will go about of business, only to open up a few months later as a Mexican joint.
The latest casualty/Mexican opening is right next door to me here on Taylorsville Road in J-town. The once-promising Maxwell's, sort of an independent version of Applebee's, has been struggling since it closed in 2009, then re-opened last year. Originally it opened in 2007 as Maggie's.
This Mexican restaurant phenomena is mind-boggling. In my neighborhood alone, there's an El Tarasco in a former Mr. Gatti's and an El Nopal in the downtown square in what used to be a pizza joint. All over town there are the Els -- Nopalito, Torazo, Toro, Caporal. Plus there's Ernesto's Fiesta Mexicano, Mexico Tipico and an El Mariachi. Most of these are housed in buildings that were once something else. A check of my Yellow Pages iPhone app turns up 151 entries under the heading "Mexican restaurant." That includes chains like Taco Bell, QDoba and Moe's.
Houston Jones, who buys and sells restaurant properties for clients, said it took about six months to market the J-town property to the Senior Iguanas...Read more