Don Hugo's stories: the customers who have come for 28 years

In April I asked my dad to tell me about the customers he remembers. We've been on Av. Paseo de los Leones for 28 years and had never written down who they are. He listed them from memory. Here's part of it.

Don Raimundo, the first customer

In 1998, with the shop just opened, my dad saw a man drive by and walked out into the street with a sample. "Try it, sir." The man said "shame, I already ate", but he got out, tried it and ordered a quarter kilo.

He lived nearby, in Vistahermosa. From that day on he came every Sunday for carnitas for his whole family, and he never stopped coming.

The customer who grew up with the shop

There's a customer (I won't say his name because he still comes) who started coming with his parents as a kid. Then with his girlfriend, then married, and now with his own children. This spring he came back with them.

"There are a few couples who started coming that way", my dad says.

Mr. Lozano and the mezcal

Mr. Lozano was a close friend of my grandfather. He came every week to talk with him, and my grandfather would pour him a small mezcal at the counter.

"A great guy", my dad says. "If my father were alive he'd be ninety-something. Mr. Lozano is about that age too."

Dr. Caro and the five guacamoles

Dr. Caro is a neurologist. Every two weeks, sometimes once a month, he takes home almost the same order: 3 or 4 kilos of carnitas and 5 guacamoles. When asked how many people it's for, he always answers: "for the grandkids".

Mr. Barragán, from the Tocumbo ice cream shop

He was from Michoacán, owned the Tocumbo ice cream shop in Guadalupe, and had been a professional dancer when he was young. One day he walked in saying "I'm from over there", and from then on he'd come in calling out "¡qué pasó, paisano!".

He liked to brag a little. He said his popsicles were the best and could be found all over the world. Every two weeks he took home carnitas for the whole family. He died two or three years ago.

The carnitas were the excuse. What brought him was running into another michoacano in Monterrey.

Dr. Ábrego, orthopedist and poet

He came in sounding thoroughly northern. He was an orthopedic surgeon, a teacher, and he wrote poems. Once my dad mentioned his knee hurt, and the doctor handed him his card: "make an appointment, here's my number". "So he wasn't really asking", my dad laughs.

He has passed away.

The ones who stopped coming

My dad also remembered families who came every week for years and one day stopped showing up: doctors, dentists, neighbors, people from Uruapan. I asked him why he thought that happened.

"Families don't get together on Sundays like they used to, because the kids are grown now, and if you add to that the fact that the parents have died, well, they don't gather the way the parents used to gather them. Do you follow me? That has a lot to do with it, son. The generations."

We open Thursday through Sunday. Don Hugo is still the one serving.