New Mexican restaurant opens in Washington
Katie Roupe/Observer-Reporter Diane Coronodo eats lunch with her daughter Giselle Coronado, 3, at Los Patrones Tacos on Monday. The restaurant opened Friday in Washington.
Katie Roupe/Observer-Reporter Los Patrones Tacos sells tacos, burritos and quesadillas served with rice and beans and fresh cilantro. The restaurant also has a chip and salsa bar with a variety of salsas.
Owners Alex Gutierrez, Romeo Hernandez, Richard Coronado and Humberto Rubio show off the variety of dishes they sell at Los Patrones Tacos, a new eatery in Washington. Not pictured is Francisco Patino. The new restaurant on 47 W. Chestnut St. is a cash-only Mexican restaurant serving tacos, burritos and quesadillas topped with chorizo, seasoned pork, skirt steak or chicken.
Katie Roupe/Observer-Reporter Los Patrones Tacos has a chip bar for customers with a variety of salsas to choose from. The restaurant is cash-only BYOB.
Natural gas and jobs aren’t the only byproducts of Marcellus Shale.
So is Los Patrones Tacos, a Mexican restaurant that launched Friday at 47 W. Chestnut St., downtown Washington. It is owned jointly by five men from Chicago who work in the region’s oil and gas fields. Four are Mexican Americans and one is a native Filipino.
“We wanted to bring our different flavors here to Washington, Pa.,” said Alex Gutierrez, who owns the venture along with Romeo Hernandez, Richard Coronado, Humberto Rubio and Francisco Patino. Hernandez is from the Philippines and the others are sons of Mexican immigrants.
Los Patrones is a cash-only operation in a location previously occupied by a tattoo parlor. The restaurant is renting the two spaces the parlor had, at 43 and 47 West Chestnut, but is using one for now, Gutierrez said. So expansion is possible.
Lunch and dinner options include tacos, tortillas, burritos and quesadillas. The signature selection, Gutierrez said, is called Gringa, a seasoned pork quesadilla made from scratch. There also is a salsa bar to complement complimentary chips.
Coca-Cola items are available, but alcohol is not served, The restaurant, however, does have a BYOB policy.
One notable feature is a comment wall, on which diners are free to write about their Los Patrones experience. “People can come in and see the comments,” Gutierrez said.
This is the owners’ first restaurant venture in Southwestern Pennsylvania, but not their initial one across the land. Gutierrez said he owned one in Chicago for four years and Patino currently operates one in the Windy City.
As with many well-site workers, Gutierrez does not live permanently in this area. He owns a house in Chicago and returns to his wife and children every other week. But his business partners here are now local residents.
He is upbeat about this new business opportunity.
“It has a lot of potential,” Gutierrez said. “We’ve had a lot of locals come in. So far, we’ve gotten good reviews.”
Los Patrones Tacos is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. It has a Facebook page – facebook.com/lospatronestacos/photos_stream – and its phone is 724-678-1662.