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1973 — present
Fifty years of the second table: Fort Wayne Magazine's judgment is hedged and is printed as hedged: El Azteca "may have been the first Mexican restaurant in Fort Wayne." It opened in 1973 in the former Helmsing's Lighthouse Restaurant on East State Boulevard, and its opening night entered the city's restaurant folklore on the magazine's telling — the retained Lighthouse cooks all quit on the first night, and co-owner Michael Ray took off his sports coat and cooked. The recipes came from his wife Juanita Zepeda Ray's family, modified by Michael over the years; Juanita still ran the house at the magazine's writing, with her daughter Cristina Ray-Durnell, and the restaurant built a second reputation on a tequila list of 170 varieties and a Tequila Club. The chain era followed in 1980, when Jim Schindler opened the first Bandido's on Winchester Road in Waynedale, with recipes created by a Mexican chef, Armino Cortez, that the kitchens used for the life of the brand. Bandido's grew to Northcrest and Georgetown Square and to Lima, Ohio, and fed Fort Wayne for more than forty years; the Georgetown Square house closed on 27 October 2022, and the original Winchester Road location — the last in Fort Wayne — closed on 31 January 2023, ending the run. The third form came from a grocery: George Rongos, a steelworker, opened George's International Market on Broadway in 1985 to stock ingredients Fort Wayne cooks could not otherwise get, and his sons Chris and Jerry and their cousin Roulie Mangos started a taqueria inside the market that grew into the four-store Salsa Grille chain — seven to ten fresh salsas at every location, and, by the brothers' stated rule, no freezer in any of them.
Sources:
- Fort Wayne Magazine / FortWayne.com, "The Family Way" — El Azteca's 1973 opening and "may have been the first," the opening-night story, the Ray family, the tequila record; George's International Market (1985) and the Salsa Grille taqueria origin.
- Bandido's, house history (bandidos.com) and the Waynedale News (October 2022) — the 1980 Winchester Road founding by Jim Schindler, chef Armino Cortez's recipes, the locations.
- Eat Fort Wayne, Bandido's closing record — the Georgetown Square closing of 27 October 2022 and the Winchester Road closing of 31 January 2023.