The essence of the Mexican immigrants who shaped Pilsen into the neighborhood it is today are found in its murals, the flavors that inspire new restaurants and in the people who have carried its culture forward. But as time marches on, fewer of those pioneering immigrants — and the places they built — remain.
One restaurant has held on to its homemade flavors for the last 60 years. La Casa del Pueblo Taqueria remains a living link to the immigrants who began arriving in Pilsen decades ago. Some of those early patrons still return religiously to the restaurant, a place that makes them feel at home.
Now that home will soon disappear from the neighborhood, too.
When Alberto Gonzalez walked into the restaurant at 1834 S. Blue Island Ave. on a recent morning, Martha Saucedo, 84, rushed to greet him. He and his wife have been going to the restaurant since the 1960’s, when they first arrived from Mexico.
“I heard you’re closing. Why?! What are we going to do without you?” Gonzalez asked Saucedo. “I hope you guys don’t leave.”
But it’s inevitable.
Earlier this year, Nicholas Lombardi Jr., the owner of the building that houses the restaurant, asked Saucedo and her family to leave the premises. In early September, Lombardi Jr. filed an eviction lawsuit against the family, alleging that the “occupants refused to surrender possession of the property within the time specified.”
The request to vacate the building came as a surprise to Saucedo, who has known the Lombardi family since she and her mother first started serving homemade soup and other dishes from the back corner of his grandfather’s supermarket in the 1960s.
That supermarket is La Casa del Pueblo Supermarket, located next door to the restaurant on Blue Island Avenue. It is now owned by Lombardi Jr. and is not affiliated with the taqueria. On paper, at least.
His grandfather, Jerri Lombardi, and father, Nicholas Lombardi, were the original owners of the building and supermarket. They offered to rent the restaurant’s current space to Saucedo and her mother based solely on a handshake agreement in 1992, according to Saucedo.
Martha Saucedo in the small kitchen of the restaurant inside La Casa del Pueblo Supermarket in the 70s. (Family photo)
It was an old-school agreement rooted in mutual appreciation and respect. The two families never had a written lease. Saucedo, who still remembers Jerri Lombardi with much love, has not heard from his grandson about why they now must go. They plan to relocate to Berwyn.
Lombardi Jr. also did not respond to requests for comment from the Chicago Tribune.
Saucedo only hopes that he allows them to keep the restaurant open through Christmas, when they sell thousands of tamales in Chicago and across the country, a tradition that draws generations of customers back to the restaurant year after year.
“All we need is some time to move our operations properly, to let our patrons know we’re moving and finish our busy season,” said Saucedo, looking out at the bustling lunch crowd at the restaurant she helped build. It was nothing compared with the long lines of customers they used to have, she recalled, but “people still love us.”
The scent of café de olla mingled with the aromas of tamales, soups and stews as the chatter in the restaurant grew louder. Every so often, Saucedo and her two children, Jorge Arturo Haro Hernandez and Monica Laffey, who help her run the restaurant, would get up to greet patrons as they came through the door. The customers also greeted one another from time to time.
“This restaurant has been created by the community,” said Haro. “It is literally the house of the people.”
For that reason, Haro said, the family is willing to fight to stay even if it is only for a few more months. And even if it means taking the matter to court after attempts to reach an agreement with Lombardi Jr. have failed.
In an effort to stay at least until Dec. 26, a day after Christmas, Saucedo and her for family have turned to an attorney for help.
The fight, Haro said, is about more than extending a lease or delaying an eviction. They see the restaurant as part of a larger struggle over what remains of the immigrant community that built Pilsen.
“At a time when Pilsen is under pressure from challenges such as gentrification to Operation Midway Blitz, the community can’t afford to abruptly lose another piece of what makes it feel like home,” said Homero Tristan, the attorney representing Saucedo and her family.
Martha and her mother Maria
Alberto Gonzalez and his wife, Catalina Gonzalez, remember taking two buses and a train from their home on the North Side to get to the restaurant in the late 1960s.
They had heard from others about a small taqueria inside the La Casa del Pueblo Supermarket that served Mexican food unlike anything else they could find in Chicago at the time.
“It was caldo de res, a beef and vegetable soup. It is still my favorite,” Gonzalez said.
Saucedo’s mother, Maria Sanchez, was the first who made the soup, along with other homemade dishes she added to the menu to see whether customers would like them. It was 1962 and Jerri Lombardi hired the two soon after they arrived from Reynosa Tamaulipas, Mexico. Sanchez cooked while Saucedo helped serve the food.
At the time, the restaurant stood on the back right-hand corner of the supermarket. Its kitchen could barely fit two people, and there was only one table with a few chairs.
The revamped menu was a success.
Soon after the mother and daughter took over the kitchen, lines began forming inside the supermarket. That’s when the grandfather Lombardi offered the duo to rent the space inside the store from him and take full ownership of the restaurant, making it their own.
“We had just enough money to pay for the rent and some of the ingredients for the food,” Saucedo recalled. “But my mom was passionate about her work, just the way I am, so we took it.”
They named it Taqueria Doña Maria.
In fact, that is still the name of the restaurant. But when the Lombardi family bought the building next door to the supermarket, the families decided that it was aesthetically pleasing to keep the similar names in the front of the store, given the history, connection and popularity of the restaurant inside the supermarket, Saucedo said.
And so Taqueria Doña Maria became known as La Casa del Pueblo Taqueria.
It became a staple of Pilsen as it grew with the Mexican immigrants that began to arrive in the area to work in nearby factories. The menu remained rooted in the dishes Saucedo’s mother cooked for them at home; flavors that, Saucedo said, cannot be learned, only passed down through generations in northern Mexico.
When Saucedo’s mother returned to Mexico around 1966, Saucedo and her sister, Marina Sanchez, took ownership of the kitchen.
Their tamales became a city favorite during the Christmas season from the start. Today the family receives orders from Miami, Texas, Hawaii, Oregon and even Toronto.
Saucedo smiled as she listed the places from which families order their tamales. Their specialty are the rojos de carne de puerco, tamales made with pork and red chile.
“We already have orders placed,” she said.
Every year, they sell more than 10,000 dozen tamales during the holiday season.
The family recently purchased a building in Berwyn, at 6723 Cermak Road, which they had planned to use exclusively to make and distribute tamales, Haro said. But those plans changed when they learned they needed to relocate.
Now, that building will house the restaurant when they leave Pilsen. It will have a new name, too. Del Pueblo Tacos, Tamales y Más.
Before they leave
The impending move has raised concerns among some customers about the broader gentrification transforming the area and, with that, the elation of spaces that still cater to the Mexican immigrants that remain living nearby.
Ananias Ocampo, 82, has been able to remain in the neighborhood through an affordable housing program for older adults. The restaurant, he said, is one of the few places where he can still find “affordable prices.”
“And they know how to serve my food,” he said as he ate his chicken soup, with the restaurant’s famous refried beans, rice and pico de gallo.
Wendy Bonilla, one of the servers, checked on him every so often. Ocampo has Parkinson’s disease and has difficulty eating, so Bonilla cut the chicken in his soup into smaller pieces to make it easier for him to eat.
In exchange, Ocampo offered her a bag of peanuts.
After dinner, Ocampo planned to walk around the neighborhood with his walker, selling peanuts and other candies.
“I try to come more often. Before they leave,” Ocampo said.
Bonilla has worked at the restaurant for 18 years, almost as long as she has lived in Chicago after arriving from El Salvador.
Like Bonilla, most of their employees have been at the restaurant for several years. Some for decades. Adela Alvarado, 64, has been a server for more than 40 years. Diana Lopez, 55, has been working at the restaurant for 34 years.
They know many of their customers by name. They know their orders by heart.
“I’ve also seen people grow up here,” Lopez said. “There are people who used to come here as children and now they come with their own children.”
For Alvarado, the restaurant is even more personal.
Casa del Pueblo was her first job after she arrived in Chicago from Mexico. It also has been her only job.
“I was very nostalgic when I learned that this location will be closed,” Alvarado said. “This is our little world, our community.”
Haro said the family tried to keep all 30 of its full-time employees through the move, though some may not be able to make the commute to the new location.
“We hope to continue our legacy wherever we go,” Haro said.
Since news of the relocation spread, the restaurant has grown quieter. Some people think it has already closed, Saucedo said.
Still, during the lunch hour, it can feel like the old days, when lines of customers wrapped around the restaurant of new and known faces.
Many of those who come in, like Gonzalez and his wife, Ocampo and Bonilla, are trying to hold on to that feeling for as long as they can, before they must leave a place that has been part of their lives for more than 60 years.
Another sign of a changing Pilsen.
Chicago Tribune reporter Zareen Syed contributed.
Dining and Cooking