Family Affair: New, family-owned Mexican restaurant opening in former Village Inn location
El Jefe Authentic Mexican Cuisine will offer some special features — including margaritas shaken tableside — when it opens in about a month, owner Delfino Santos told the Ames Tribune on Tuesday.
The restaurant will be located at the former Village Inn site at 524 Lincoln Way, which is currently being remodeled.
“We’ll be preparing our authentic Mexican food from scratch,” he said. “It’s not Tex-Mex, it’s more authentic cuisine.”
The menu will include a wide variety of items, including molcajetes, authentic birria tacos and several seafood options.
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A family connection
With Santo’s mother, Catarena Vargas, in charge of the kitchen, meals will feature several longtime family recipes. Vargas’ mole-poblano sauce sticks out as an example, which requires about 25 ingredients.
Santos will operate El Jefe along with his mom, sister and brother-in-law.
The family immigrated from Mexico 18 years ago and have worked in restaurant management for several years.
“We finally decided to open our own business,” Santos said. “We are doing our best to bring delicious food and a fantastic experience to our customers.”
El Jefe will offer a full selection of cocktails, including top-shelf mojitos and margaritas.
“We’ll be offering brunch and breakfast on weekends,” Santos said. “We’ll see how Ames responds to that, and if it’s a good option, we’ll be doing more breakfast throughout the week.”
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Ronna Faaborg covers business and the arts for the Ames Tribune. Reach her at rlawless@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Ames Tribune: El Jefe Authentic Mexican is remodeling former Village Inn Ames
