A young Sal Lopez (19) and Mary Pasmant (17) were married in Brownsville, Texas in 1945. In April of that same year they would travel by train to Los Angeles to visit Sal's father, Miguel Lopez where they would decide to stay. Later that year, Sal Jr. was born.
In 1948, while on one of her visits to see her father, Manuel Pasmant, in Oxnard, he told Mary about a vacant building at 566 South Oxnard Blvd he had secured. He had paid the month's rent with the intentions of starting another business, but his café known as the Navy Café was doing well and he had no time to devote to another business. Mary quickly replied she wanted it to start her own restaurant.
Sal continued living and working in Los Angeles with his father at a warehouse, but made trips to Oxnard on the weekends to see his 20-year-old wife. Mary and her brother Richard started their business and after the second week in business it was booming- so much that Sal had to leave his job in Los Angeles to lend a hand.
In 1949, Sal and Mary opened a restaurant in Ventura on Main Street, directly across the street from the San Buenaventura Mission. Mary cooked for both locations and ran the Ventura location with Sal's younger sister Tencha working as a waitress and Sal ran the Oxnard location with Mary's brother Richard. Mary soon tired at toting her son, Sal Jr. and baby daughter Linda back and forth, sometimes cooking for the Oxnard location at 4:00 a.m. She decided it was time to sell the Ventura location and to her surprise, her recently widowed assistant cook offered to buy it. Mary asked her how she could possibly afford to buy the business, the older woman replied she had a brand new house her husband had not finished building when he died that she would be willing to trade for the restaurant and a certain amount of money. With the help from the local bank, that would be their first home in Oxnard on H Street.
Money conscience, Mary started her own checking account with only $1.00. Every chance she got, once a day at most, she would deposit 25˘ to a $1.00 to her growing account. From 1948-1952 she diligently saved. Then the opportunity that she knew would present itself finally did happen. The Otani family was selling a lot of land with the building. Sal was optimistic until he found out the selling price. To his dismay, he didn't have enough in their mutual account. Mary proudly told him not to worry, she had scrimped and saved the amount they needed for this new location. So in 1952, The Mexican Inn Cafe moved to 1450 South Oxnard Blvd.
In the mid 1950's the building was replaced by a new diner, which is the side dining room with the fireplace. The restaurant would now boast of having 4 employees. SaI, Mary, a waiter by the name of Alfred and a 14-year-old named Patricio as a dishwasher. Young Patricio was a diligent student of Mary’s in the kitchen, always asking her about this and how to do that. When Mary decided three children in the kitchen were more than she could handle (Eddie was born in 1953), Patricio was fully prepared to step in as chef.
In 1957 a side dining room (what is now the main dining room) was added and additional lots were purchased to add a parking lot. In July of 1963 the final dining room was added.
In 1979, Lettie, age 18, the fourth and final child of Sal and Mary's children, came to work at the Mexican Inn. "Dad" she asked, "do you think we will get to the point where we'll fill the back room with clients?" Sal answered, “I can’t see that many people making a fuss over tacos!"
Yes, the Lopez family lost Sal in November of 2000 and Mary in March of 2007, but Lettie pledges to carry on the tradition of personalized service Sal and Mary bequeathed to her as General Manager. Their children, the various other family members who have worked in the restaurant through the years, as well as the extended family of customers, share warm memories of growing up and growing in success together. There will always be a warm welcome for old friends and cordial greeting for new customers at the Mexican Inn, as it always was with Sal at his post.
Even though Sal's lost their Master Chef, Patricio Rodriguez to a brave battle with cancer in July of 2003, Lettie reports that Patricio's assistant chef still starts every day in the kitchen cooking at 5:00 a.m. to prepare meals from Patricio's own delicious recipes as well as those traditional dishes passed down to him by Mary so many years ago. The back dining room is filled to capacity almost every night with folks "making a fuss" over the best tacos in the county. And Lettie's children have already asked when she will retire so that they can run the restaurant. So there you have it, the third generation of the Lopez family is antsy to get started.
