Remembering beloved restaurateur Bernal
Teddy Bernal Jr. said he’s going to step up and take more responsibility at Frank and Lupe’s Old Mexico in Scottsdale now that his father is gone. He may only be 19, but it can be done — his father Teddy Bernal opened the popular restaurant when he was 20.
Longtime metro Phoenix restaurateur Teddy Bernal, the operator of Frank and Lupe’s Restaurants, died of COVID-19 on July 5 at age 45.
Bernal Jr. said the family is “mostly still in shock” at the sudden loss. Bernal leaves behind his wife, Diana Prieto, their 9-year-old daughter Valentina, and his two children Teddy Jr. and Brittany Bernal, 23, who he had with his first wife Gina Bernal.
“He was a great father,” Brittany said. “His heart was bigger than the world.”
A legacy of generational cooking
Bernal ran the Arizona locations of Frank and Lupe’s Restaurants with his brother Eddie. The first location was opened by their parents, Frank and Lupe, in Socorro, New Mexico, in 1980. Bernal grew up at his parents’ restaurant in the small town in central New Mexico’s Rio Grande Valley, and spent time working there “since he could walk,” Brittany said. “It was just in his blood to serve others.”
He left Socorro and moved to the Valley to attend the Scottsdale Culinary Institute and bring his family’s New Mexican cuisine to Arizona. The Bernals opened Frank and Lupe’s in Scottsdale in 1995 and in Ahwatukee Foothills in 2017.
“My dad loved this place. He was always here. He was always doing something for the restaurant, whether it was for his employees or for his customers,” Bernal Jr. said.
When the family announced on Facebook that Bernal had died, hundreds of customers and friends commented to express their condolences, shocked at the loss of the man described by Brittany as a chef who “made food just as great as his personality.”
Chef Silvana Salcido Esparza, owner of Barrio Cafe in Phoenix, said Bernal was a longtime friend and someone who supported her endeavors. “He was one of the first ones that expressed cultural pride for what I do.”
“And then he pointed me to his restaurant,” she said. Not only did Esparza like his food, but she was impressed by Bernal, who she called a “family man.”
“He took what his parents did and put his own take on it … all of us who come from generational cooking want to do that.”
‘We have zero clue how he got it’
Bernal fell ill in June, and while his wife, Diana, also tested positive for COVID-19 and spent a few days in the hospital, she is currently recovering. Bernal went to the hospital on June 26 and died 10 days later.
Bernal Jr. said they don’t think he got sick at the restaurant, and no one else there has fallen ill.
“We have zero clue how he got it,” he said.
The restaurant has been open for dine-in since mid-May, but he said employees strictly follow all CDC guidelines for restaurants and added that his father had “almost zero contact with customers or employees.”
Despite the fact the family is still reeling from the loss, the restaurants are open again because it’s almost impossible to survive financially otherwise, Bernal Jr. said,
“Obviously this needs to be stopped, because it’s ruining so many lives. Look what it’s done to my family,” he said of the coronavirus. But “from a business standpoint, a lot of restaurants can’t survive that,” he said of continued closures.
Completely closing shop is hard, especially for small businesses, but Brittany said she hopes people take the COVID threat seriously.
“Money comes and goes, but when someone dies, they’re gone forever,” she said.
Brittany started a GoFundMe to pay for the unexpected financial burden from the loss of her father and said many people immediately chipped in to pay funeral expenses.
“I formally want to thank every single person who has donated to that because that took a huge weight off my shoulders,” she said.
With Bernal Jr. trying to fill the void left behind by his father, Brittany said the family restaurant is in capable hands and she hopes it will continue for future generations.
“I think the business is going to be OK. … It’s what we have left of our dad.
We don’t ever want that to go away.”