The story of Omaha’s first Mexican restaurant begins in the stockyards. The meat packers that comprised the stockyards needed labor and lots of it in order to keep up with demand. They turned to immigrants who could provide labor on the cheap. They hired so many immigrants that by 1900, nearly one quarter of Omaha’s residents were foreign born. Like so many others, Antonio Espejo, looked towards the stockyards for work after emigrating from Mexico at the age of 18. Eventually he would find himself working as a butcher for one of the “Big Four” meat packers (Armour, Wilson, Cudahy and Swift).
Cutting beef and hog carcarsses is dirty, dangerous work that is hard on your wrists, fingers and hands. So after years of working in the stockyards, Antonio naturally wanted a better life for his children. Perhaps a respite for himself as well. With this in mind, he decided to open a restaurant near the 24th St business district in which he and so many other immigrants lived. He found the perfect place in the former Sharley’s Night Club at 5407 S 24th St. It allowed the family to live upstairs while operating the restaurant in the basement which had a separate entrance, restrooms and bar.
While the area had a sizable Mexican population by 1921, it was also home to a large number of European immigrants that also worked in the nearby stockyards. Seeing an opportunity to provide his neighbors with authentic dishes from back home, Antonio opened the doors to El Charro in 1947. The restaurant served fresh Mexican food including tacos, enchiladas, arroz con pallo, chile relleno and mole poblano. The restaurant was said to offer “Mexican cuisine at its finest with a touch of Old Mexico’s atmosphere”. Another advertisement states that “the name El Charro has become associated with fine Mexican cookery” and that they are “still the first and original CHARRO dining house carrying on this tradition”. People often confused El Charro and Howard’s Charro so I suspect that this and perhaps a rivalry between the two restaurants necessitated the ad.
When the popular restaurant outgrew the house, it relocated to Omaha Fire Station # 19 in 1971. The abandoned station at 5223 S 20th St was an ideal spot as it had a Spanish motif. To make it suitable for their purposes, arches were made out of doorways, partitions were changed in addition to adding stone to the front where the garage door used to be. When it was complete, the new location allowed seating for 85. El Charro remained a popular South Omaha restaurant. So much so that Minor Leaguer, George Brett and a couple of teammates, stopped in for a meal during an Omaha Royals homestand in 1974.
By 1975 El Charro was on the move again but this time a little further north and west to Leavenworth St. While I’m not exactly sure of the motive, I suspect they were once again looking for a larger building as well as wider support. They settled on the old Fireside restaurant at 3802 Leavenworth St. The restaurant was remodeled to resemble a Mexican garden with stucco walls, greenery and a fountain. This particular location had a full bar which was a change from the previous locations that only served beer. A full bar was needed in order to open a Mexican nightclub in the lower level of a space that had been the Pirate’s Den. In addition to serving the same Mexican cuisine that they were known for, they also offered a full steak menu at this new location. They even rebranded themselves as Omaha’s first Mexican steakhouse.
El Charro closed its doors just two years later in 1977. It’s unforeseen closure can, in part, be attributed to the inflation that occurred in the mid-1970’s which caused a spike in food prices. Another factor in its closure was the loss of its loyal South Omaha customer base which supported the restaurant since its inception in the basement of that house on 24th St.
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