Greater Tulsa Reporter Newspapers has published a well-done article about El Rancho Grande, the oldest surviving restaurant on 11th Street (aka Route 66) in Tulsa.
The news hook is the restaurant’s recently restored and unique neon sign. But the story also contains a nice overview about the development of Tex-Mex cuisine in Tulsa (and the United States in general).
Enterprising folks found ways to divert trickles from the river of a highway into their diners and eateries for a short stopover and some good old American food before proceeding on down the restless road.
El Rancho Grande was just such a place, only the food was decidedly not diner food, or even American for that matter, but just as fast and just as coveted by both travelers and locals. It was called Tex-Mex, a coupling of Mexican and particularly Texas cuisines with an emphasis on chili powder, cumin and garlic seasoning, and with lots of meat and cheese ingredients. Tex-Mex was a hearty workingman’s cuisine. It reached the table quickly, was cheap and “stuck to your ribs.” It had already found a home in the Austin, Texas area from where the restaurant’s original owners Francisco and Guadalupe Rodriquez came. They left the Lone Star State in the 1940s because it had become saturated with small mom and pop restaurants devoted to Tex-Mex.
They apparently were in a hurry to introduce Tulsa to this new hybrid menu because they wasted no time in setting up a tamale wagon in the downtown area. This gave way to a small downtown restaurant. As far as anyone can tell it was the first Tex-Mex food being served in the city. Then in 1953 an ad appears in the city directory confirming El Rancho Grande Tex-Mex restaurant had moved to its current location on 11th Street. Not long after (know one is sure when) the wonderful old neon sign with its flashing bulb-lit arrow appeared on the front of the building pointing motorist to Tulsa’s newly located El Rancho Grande Mexican Food restaurant. […]
“We’ve tried very hard to maintain all the original Tex-Mex ingredients and recipes. When a long time customer tells us we’ve succeeded in preserving the El Rancho Grande Tex-Mex tradition, nothing could make us happier,” says (co-owner) John Walden.
El Rancho Grande’s Web site is here.
If the food tastes as good as it looks, theres no wonder why it survived.
Super cool !
Thanks for the article(s).