Home cooking in the South Valley
For over 40 years Kathy’s Carry Out has served up everything from tacos to community spirit
Kathy Alvarez has been slinging tacos since Richard Nixon left the White House in disgrace, Ford Pintos graced local car lots and bell bottoms ruled the fashion scene.
It was 1974 and Alvarez was not even a year out of high school. A failed attempt at Bible school left her wondering what to do next. She had pictured herself living on a sprawling campus with many other students, but that wasn’t quite what she found once she arrived.
“That only lasted two weeks,” she said. “I thought it would be a large campus. It was 10 people living in the back of the church. I left.”
Alvarez had worked at a small restaurant for her pastor as a teenager. There was a small building along Isleta Boulevard. Her mother encouraged her to start her own business there, so she did. Kathy’s Carry Out opened on April Fool’s Day 1974.
“We didn’t get a loan and we didn’t get new stuff,” she said. “Because we didn’t know if we would make it. We went to garage sales to find things. I bought canned sodas because I didn’t even have a soda machine.”
The irony, though, is that Alvarez doesn’t like to cook.
“I don’t even cook for my husband at home,” she said. “I bring food from here or we go out to eat.”
She leaves that part of the business to her employees but said she opened a restaurant because she always wanted to be her own boss.
Alvarez and the restaurant have become South Valley staples. She said people have a negative view of the South Valley, but it’s a tightknit community full of friendly people. She spent much of her time growing up in the South Valley and graduated from Rio Grande High School in 1973. Her family had moved away to another part of town by that point, but Alvarez was willing to ride home on the city bus so she could continue attending school at Rio Grande.
Her niece Ava Holley, who worked at the restaurant as a teen, said her aunt takes great pride in being located in the South Valley. She donates to local teams and people she served at her restaurant as children are now coming in with their grandchildren. Holley said her customers know she’s a part of the community and that she cares what happens to them.
“She comes off as this tough person because she doesn’t always smile,” Holley said. “But she is everyone’s second mom. She’s the loving, caring person everyone needs in their lives.”
Holley said her aunt is very much a minimalist. She might now have a credit card machine but everything is still prepared the way it was in 1974.
“She has kept the same recipes,” Holley said. “It has not changed. When I worked there as a teen, peeling 100 pounds of potatoes was no fun.”
The restaurant was initially located in the small, rundown building next door to her current location. It was painted a bright purple and only had enough room for a kitchen. There was no indoor seating or a drive-thru. Customers had to walk up to a window and order face-to-face.
When the owners decided to raise the rent in 2007, Alvarez decided it was time to build her own place. She bought the property next door and built a larger restaurant with indoor and outdoor seating, a drive-thru and finally a credit card machine.
COVID-19 has brought challenges, but business is still booming.
Alvarez attributes a lot of that to her loyal customers. She has elected to close her outdoor seating area because she said it was too hard to police social distancing and she didn’t want to be constantly battling with her customers. This can mean long waits of up to 30 minutes to get food. Customers must call in their orders and pick it up at the drive-thru.
Richard Lucero, 63, has been going to Kathy’s for 30 years with his wife Amalia.
“That line is down the road on Isleta sometimes,” he said. “But it’s worth it. It’s all like homemade.”
True to her practical nature, Alvarez has not tried to turn her Kathy’s Carry Out into anything more than a place to get a good meal. She once tried opening another location in Los Lunas but came to the realization she only wanted to run one restaurant and the only place she wanted to do that was the South Valley.
“I was a workaholic when it first opened,” she said. “I worked day and night. Now I can come when I want and leave when I want. It runs itself. I want to celebrate 50 years in business and then we’ll see what’s next.”