Last Friday, I had a terrific Mexican lunch with Mary at El Charro in downtown Tucson. Established in 1922, El Charro Cafe of Tucson is the nation's oldest Mexican restaurant in continuous operation by the same family. El Charro features traditional Sonoran and Tucson style Mexican Food. El Charro was named "one of the top 50 plates in America" by USA Today.
The El Charro story began with Jules Flin, a stocky young Frenchman and master stone mason. Shortly after arriving in Tucson in the 1860's, Monsieur Flin found himself toiling with chisel and hammer under ceaseless desert sun. He had been hired to create the stone façade for Tucson's San Augustine Church. (The façade still exists - now it graces the entrance of the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson.) Jules married Carlota Brunet, also of French stock, in 1884. They spoke French throughout their lives, bringing up eight bilingual, then trilingual, children: Monica, Louise, Francisca, Lydia, Julio, Carlos, Stephano and Agustin.
In the late 1890's, Flin built a sturdy home on Court Street, part of the exclusive residential section of Tucson known as Snob Hollow. Snob Hollow lay just outside the area that had encompassed the early Spanish presidio. The house was willed to Monica and is the fourth and present site of El Charro Café. It is designated Site Number 14 in El Presidio District on the National Register of Historic Places. The high-ceilinged house is made of the black volcanic basalt rock that characterized most of Flin's buildings. He quarried the rock from his claim at the foot of "A" Mountain, just west of downtown.
Jules Flin's daughter, Monica, began El Charro Café. Monica Flin's culinary skills, learned in childhood, were to afford her a high-profile life as one of Tucson's first businesswomen from the day she opened El Charro Café in 1922. As a young woman, Monica had married and lived in Mexico. When her second husband died, she returned home to Tucson. Borrowing money from a sister, she opened a narrow, one-room restaurant and named it El Charro Café, after the romantic "gentlemen horsemen" known as los charros of Mexico.
In the early days, Monica worked on short-term credit. When a customer arrived, she would dash out the back door and cajole the neighboring Chinese grocer into giving her the provisions she needed. Then she would rush back to her kitchen, prepare the meal, serve it, collect the customer's money and return to the grocer to pay her bill. Somewhere there must have been a profit. Early menus from the 1920s show combination plates costing fifteen cents and a line that read, "No service for less than 10 cents."
After a few years, Monica moved her operation to Scott Street, into the graceful Temple of Music and Art (now the home of the Arizona Theatre Company), and expanded it. But the Depression was hard on El Charro and most Tucson businesses. Faced with a financial dilemma, Monica again turned to family. Her sister Francisca had a large building on West Broadway, the main street at the time, where she and her husband operated a drug store. One part was rented to a Chinese merchant, but other quarters were vacant and perfect for the new El Charro.
In 1968, Monica moved El Charro to the old family home on Court Street she had inherited from her parents, where it stands today. She brought with her the curios, tables and chairs, Mexican picture calendars, murals and saints' pictures (which make up most of the décor today) and most of her employees. She also brought along her father's rifles, which he had used to protect his family against Apaches, and mounted them above the new entrance. El Charro Cafe is full of character and the food is delicious!
