Mexican couple brings recipe for success here

The Day
1977
By Steven Slosberg

GROTON – Down by the Mexican border, where jalapeño peppers smolder on the sunny side of active volcanoes, is the small Texas town of San Marcos.

Henry and Julia Garza were born there. He was the first of 18 brothers and sisters; she, the last of 11. They did not know one another as youngsters, but raised in Mexican families, they knew the same food.

They ate tortillas three times a day, They ate tacos in the marketplace. And most likely, they wept the same tears at the first state of jalapeño peppers, which do not necessarily grown on volcanoes, but would certainly be at home there.

Henry and Julia – he is 56 and she 49 – saw those tears again not so long ago in their restaurant, El Rancho at 33 Kings Highway.

The tears were streaming down the cheeks of four young diners downing tortilla chips called nachos doused with jalapeño hot sauce. They were crying, saying Henry, but they kept eating.

Such tears of joy are not often seen at the restaurant. Julia, who had never cooked outside the family before starting in restaurants, soon learned that New Englanders might want to season their own food.

The jalapeño hot sauce has been cooled down some, too. Like every other dish Julia cooks, it was made different ways until it was right.

The Garzas came late to the restaurant business.

Henry came to live in this era while in the Navy. In 1962, divorced from his first wife, he went back to San Marcos and married Julia, returned here and retired from the Navy and bought a share of John's Barber Shop at Plaza Court. He learned barbering in the Navy.

In 1968, he bought the former Coachman's Pub in Groton Shopping Plaza. After buying out his partners, he and Julia began serving Mexican food along with American. Here, Julia learned her craft. Chili, enchiladas and tacos, made from hand-rolled tortillas, were served.

Then, in 1970, the Garzas bought the restaurant at Trumbull Airport and served Mexican and American food. Henry's son now runs that restaurant.

Next, they bought a restaurant – El Sombrero – on Jefferson Avenue in New London. All the while, Henry was barbering and Julia cooking.

They kept El Sombrero for several years and then sold it.

In 1975, they sold the Coachman's Pub and bought an Italian Restaurant which they turned into El Rancho.

Along with way, they also bought three homes which they still own.

Henry, who still takes his place by the barber chair before 9 each morning, says going into the restaurant business was a spur-of-the-moment thing.

"We thought about Mexican food," he explains in a booth at his restaurant, dressed in his barber's garb and immaculately groomed, "and seeing no restaurants around here, we thought it would go over."

Julia, a handsome women in a brightly decorated blouse and black pants, never was happy at home doing nothing. After coming here with Henry - she also had been divorced - she began selling beauty products door-to door and jewelry. She soon tired of that and went to work for Sheffield Tube Corp. in New London.

After five years there, she went to help Henry at the pub and became a cook.

The cook.

She preferred 20 pounds of hamburger for tacos at the time. She made hot sauce and the sauce for chilies rellenos five gallons at at time. She bought at machine for making tamales - the most difficult dish for her – and spend hours trying to prepare them so Henry would eat them.

After much effort, the meat and dough which is wrapped in corn husk and steamed won Henry over.

The Garzas, who live in a trailer at High Rock Trailer Park, keep the restaurant open seven days a week, but try their best to stay away on Sunday.

They both have a taste for Chinese food and once in a while go for pizza.

Henry says he looks forward to retiring in another five years or so, but it not sure about the future. They do not have plans for more restaurants.

"One time I came from the barbershop to the pub, "he calls," and I saw a guy who knew me from the barbershop. He said to me 'What are you doing here?' I told him I had a lot of kids and I needed a second job. So they guy left a $2 tip!"

Henry laughs as he things about those days, but admits that the time may be near to slow down a little.

Julia, though, says the couple usually takes a long vacation in February and comes back full of fire.

Full of fire is right.

This is what she puts into her hot sauce; jalapeños, onions, garlic, cumin, tomatoes, salt and pepper and parsley.

Tears are on the house.