Molina’s success is a family affair
IT’S not every day that you get to talk to a legend in Houston’s colorful culinary history. Especially if the legend is now retired and living on a working cattle farm in Anderson, outside College Station.
But get Raul Molina Jr., 87, conversing about the business his parents built, and he’s happy to walk down a memory lane — a long, vivid path. It starts in Laredo, Mexico, in 1929 and continues through today in the modern metropolis of Houston. It’s the story of hard work and sacrifice — a familiar chorus in the restaurant world. A story of a family intensely focused on the American dream. A story of the enduring, transformative powers of Tex-Mex cuisine. It’s a story of Molina’s restaurants. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the business that became Molina’s
Cantina, Houston’s oldest family-owned and -operated Tex-Mex restaurant (outliving even the beloved Felix’s Mexican Restaurant, which closed in 2008). To mark the occasion, Molina’s is launching a week’s worth of festivities beginning Sunday.
Today, the third generation of Molinas — brothers Raul III, Ricardo and Roberto, the three sons of Raul Molina Jr. — run the business that began when their grandfather bought his first restaurant. The struggle to make that business a success has never been lost on Raul Molina Jr., who started working there when he was 12 years old and continued through his retirement at 77.
“You don’t see many family businesses that continue past the second generation. To be in the third generation is amazing. I have been very fortunate that the boys wanted to continue in the business,” Raul Jr. says. “I didn’t force them into it; that would be the last thing I’d do. For them to continue the business is more than I can dream of.”
Raul Jr.’s father’s contribution to Houston history had humble beginnings. In 1929, Raul Molina, one of 10 children (five boys and five girls), left his hometown of Laredo, Mexico, to do pipeline work in Texas. He eventually moved to Houston, where he had a brother who got him work as a busboy in a hotel restaurant, which led to several other food-service jobs, including work at James Coney Island downtown. Raul met his wife, Mary, a ticket-seller at the old Azteca Theater. “My dad loved going to the movies,” Raul Jr. says. “That’s where the romancing started.”
The couple married and began a family. In 1941, Raul and Mary purchased the Old Monterrey Restaurant on West Gray and set about serving the Mexican food they knew. It was a family affair with Mary cooking, Raul waiting tables and sons Raul Jr. and George washing dishes. The family lived in one room above the restaurant. “My brother and I slept on the floor,” Raul Jr. says.
Soon the Molinas purchased another restaurant, Mexico City Restaurant, on South Main; and then another business on Bissonnet in 1955. The Molinas’ name finally went on the marquee in the ’50s and has changed several times (as have the locations of the restaurants) over the years. In 1977, Raul Jr. acquired full interest in the family business, and his three sons eventually joined Molina’s. Today, the brothers co-own the business and divide duties in running day-to-day operations.
Raul Jr. can’t point to one single thing that made Molina’s a success. There was hard work, for sure: “My father worked seven days a week, 10 hours a day. No vacation, no nothing,” he says. And there was a belief that success was attainable, even outside the familiar restaurant realm: “My dad discouraged me from the restaurant business because it was a lot of hard work. He wanted me to get an education. He encouraged us to do what we wanted. He said, ‘If you want to be a ditch digger, I’ll buy you a shovel.’ ”
But one thing Molina’s was good at was adapting to the growing and changing restaurant scene.
“We kept experimenting to see what the customers wanted. When we first started, we didn’t serve chips and salsa, we served crackers. Chile con queso? We started making that in the mid-’50s, and it was so popular. One of the things Papa wanted was ceviche. We tried that in the early ’50s, but it never took off. We ended up giving it away. Chicken mole never took off either,” Raul Jr. says. “The menu and the food evolved. It all evolved. In this business, you have to stay abreast with the demands of the day and the things people want. It’s been one of our greatest successes that we evolved. I admire that my boys have done the same thing and evolved to where we are now. We have not stayed still; we’ve kept moving.”
Yet some things have remained the same, specifically the menu’s standouts. The chile con carne is the same recipe the Molinas served in 1941. The restaurant’s salsa is the same, as is the escabeche, along with constants such as enchiladas and tamales.
“My dad always said be consistent. We stay with the recipes my dad had, even though we’ve grown,” Raul Jr. says. “It doesn’t matter which restaurant, you’re getting the same thing. It’ll taste the same because it’s consistent.”
Generations of Molina’s fans have enjoyed dishes such as Jose’s Dip (queso blended with spicy taco meat), Nancy Ames’ Special Nachos (composed of nachos topped with spicy beef, beans, guacamole, cheese, tomatoes and jalapeños), Ladies’ Special (cheese enchilada, guacamole and queso), Berly’s Burrito (filled with fajita meat and covered in chile con carne and topped with melted cheese), C.W. Special (taco al carbon, cheese enchilada, rice and beans) and Enchiladas a la Michael (three chicken enchiladas covered in salsa verde and chopped with Chihuahua cheese).
“We still boil bones for our gravy. We still grind chiles for the chile con carne,” says Ricardo Molina, Raul Jr.’s son. “We’re still following the original recipes. We don’t know how to do otherwise.”