Everyone who ever ate at Matt’s Rancho Martinez has a favorite Matt Martinez story. I have so many I that I don’t know which one to choose. Sadly, those are all we’ll have left of Matt.
The man who helped make Tex-Mex something more than nachos with Velveeta died Friday of complications of cancer. Lakewood and East Dallas without Matt? It’s hard to imagine. Funeral services are at 11 a.m. Thursday at St. Thomas Aquinas. The rest of the details are here.
After the jump, a few thoughts about Matt and his legacy.
When winemakers visit Dallas, they usually ask me where they should have dinner. And I always tell them they should go to Matt’s. That’s the real Dallas, a neighborhood Tex-Mex joint. Yes, they can eat at a posh, chef-driven place, and we have some great ones. But every city in the world has those. How many other places have a Matt’s? It’s like my pal Mack Turner, a native Dallasite, always says: “Tex-Mex may not seem like much, but it’s ours. And we should appreciate it.”
Matt Martinez always did. The various obituaries will list the obvious – the Bob Armstrong dip, the mural on the side of the restaurant, the celebrities and politicians like Julia Child and LBJ. But what I’ll remember is the day-to-day stuff, the running the restaurant part. Where Matt’s is today used to be a faux-Cuban restaurant (an old neighbor of mine designed the room, complete with those distinctive chandeliers). When the faux-Cuban place went bust, Matt moved down from the corner, where the Centennial is now. Did he spend any money to change the decor? Nope. What would be the point of wasting money on that?
Or the time an old college roommate of mine came to town and we ate at Matt’s. What should I have, he asked? I said that I loved the chicken-fried steak with chili, cheese and onions, but that it would certainly keep my friend up all night. Which he ordered and devoured — and was then up all night. The whole time, he kept asking me: Why could anyone put chili, cheese and onions on chicken-fried steak? Because that’s what Matt did.
Yes, sometimes the service left something to be desired, and sometimes the kitchen wasn’t always on its game. But I knew that, regardless of anything else, Matt’s was always about the neighborhood. There would be Lakewood and East Dallas people there, and it always seemed so normal, without any of the foolishness that often goes on at other restaurants in town. I ate dinner there a couple of weeks ago, sharing a couple of bottles of wine with some friends. (Hey, Matt never marked up the wine as much as most restaurants in town, which was another reason to appreciate him).
We sat on the patio and watched the other guests – three women and a man, all about my age, working their way through happy hour. A family with a couple of small kids. What looked like a couple of younger people on a date. I ate my taco salad (my chicken fried with chili, cheese and onion days, sadly, are behind me) and felt really good. What’s a better legacy than that?
