Taste of enchantment: Tomasita's celebrates a half-century of New Mexican flavor

Take a bite of Tomasita’s New Mexican food and you will unlock the secret to its success.

The restaurant, which is celebrating 50 years of operation this month, was built on traditional recipes and hard work. It all began in Albuquerque’s Atrisco barrio where Tomasita’s founder, Georgia Maryol, grew up during the 1940s-1950s.

“We had this neighbor, Mrs. Sanchez, and her niece was really good friends with my sister,” Maryol explained. “After school, we’d go over, and she’d fix us red chile and homemade tortillas, and it was so good. And I said, ‘Boy, if I ever open a restaurant, this is what I’m going to serve,’ and that’s what happened.”

Taste of enchantment: Tomasita's celebrates a half-century of New Mexican flavor

Fast-forward to the early 1970s, when Maryol and her young son James walked into a little café on Hickox Street in Santa Fe, according to the restaurant’s website. Maryol was taken back to her childhood in the Atrisco barrio after biting into the café’s bean burrito with red chile and went to the kitchen to meet the cook. There she met Tomasita Leyba, a woman in her 70s, with a cigarette in one hand and stirring a pot with the other.

Maryol became a frequent guest of the café and learned the owner was unable to continue running the business. It was fate.

In 1974, Maryol offered to take on all debts in exchange for the café despite being unemployed and raising two young sons, James and George. Leyba did not skip a beat and continued on in the kitchen making quality food while Maryol navigated being the owner of a restaurant working with a skeleton crew and outdated equipment, according to the website. Maryol would pitch in where needed in the café and hit the pavement, placing flyers advertising the restaurant on cars. Little by little, business began to grow and people would wait outside on the steps until there was an open table in the 30 seat café.

The opportunity to lease a larger space arose in 1979 and the café relocated to its current space at 500 S. Guadalupe St. in Santa Fe. The building first served as a passenger station and later a receiving office for the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad.

“We added a kitchen, two patios, new bathrooms, liquor storage and expanded the place,” Maryol said. “We have a lot of good parking. It works out.”

The South Guadalupe Street location followed in its previous location’s footsteps and became a popular spot for tourists and New Mexicans. So much so that many Albuquerque residents would frequently make the trek up to Santa Fe for a meal. Due to popular demand, Tomasita’s opened its second location in Albuquerque in 2017 off Interstate 25 at 4949 Pan American Freeway NE.

“We just had a lot of customers that came up on a regular basis,” said George Gundrey, Maryol’s youngest son who took over ownership in 2011. “Albuquerque is a big city with a lot of customers. There’s great New Mexican food there, but for a city that size, there’s not enough. When I took over, I didn’t want to just take over my mother’s restaurant, I wanted to expand and grow (and) serve more customers. Get some of the benefits from being larger.”

Tomasita Leyba has since passed away but left behind a lifetime of memories, including the restaurant with her namesake. The restaurant’s menu is also reminiscent of its original offerings and has not changed drastically over the years.

“We don’t change the menu much, although we do specials,” Gundrey said. “It has evolved over the years, but it’s red and green chile, it’s enchiladas, tacos, burritos, and then a bunch of different things you can make with all those. We’ve got tamales and we make those. We have chile rellenos. The menu has definitely gotten bigger, but it’s all from the same core, New Mexican ingredients, chicken and chile, rice and beans.”

Tomasita’s boasts making its red chile from pods, not powder. Gundrey said his family has been buying red chile from the same family in Hatch for more than 30 years. He added, keeping recipes simple and where and how you source ingredients is important to the restaurant’s success.

“Another thing that we’re really happy about is we get all of our corn tortillas, all of those products from La Mexicana (Tortilla Company in Downtown Albuquerque),” he said “They are master craft people, the corn, the tortillas, the chips, the posole, the masa for the tamales, are very important ingredients. They’re from the old school, and that’s how we try to do everything, from the old school.”

The road has not been easy but nothing worthwhile ever is. It is a lesson that Maryol has passed on to people wanting to open a restaurant.

“Anyone that goes into the restaurant business has got to realize how difficult it is,” she said. “There are a million details and it’s not a 9-to-5 job. This is hard work and perseverance is part of the characteristics of opening any business, especially the restaurant business. Anyone that wants to open a restaurant and comes to me for advice, I tell them, ‘Be ready to work 80 hours a week.’ If you’re not, you’re gonna have a problem.”

Maryol remembers many nights when she was stuck at the restaurant past midnight because the dishwasher did not show up. Her young sons would fall asleep in one of the restaurant’s booths as Maryol worked through the night.

“You make a lot of sacrifices,” she said. “It’s a tough business and people need to know that.”