Tucked into a corner of Altadena Triangle Park is a bright spot in an area where blackened, ruined piles of what used to be Altadena businesses still stand. The Eaton Fire did not consume El Patrón Mexican Restaurant, which reopened Monday, but a two-month closure and the loss of many its customers weighs on owner Maggie Cortez, 45.
“It’s gonna tough for a while, I’m scared if my business will survive, and my 13 employees depend on me,” Cortez said. “But today I feel amazing, I’m excited.”
Cortez had donned her usual bright flowery blouse and pants and her mother’s rose clip over one ear, ready to greet people who walk through the door.
“I’ve said this even before the fires, in Altadena, we’re not neighbors, we’re family,” she said, proving her point by hugging most of the people who did drop by for her famous nopalitos con huevos, chile verdes or the house special molcajete.
“The only thing I think is God is with me and my Mom who’s my angel is with me, telling me, ‘Maggie, be strong. You’re going to make it,’” Cortez said.
As the smoke has long cleared and trucks are hauling away debris, she said the fires will become part of her story too.
The night of the inferno, after evacuating her three children, her father Pedro, two dogs, one cat and her son’s turtle, Cortez drove back home and stayed in town for the first harrowing days after the Eaton Fire.
She was still mourning the death of her beloved Mama Rosa, who had died of cancer in a mere three months before. Her daughter had told her to leave a photo of the matriarch on their sofa, “so Mama Rosa can watch over our house and the restaurant.”
It was there waiting for her when she returned the evening of Jan. 7. She hosed down the house, put wet towels under the doors and prayed.
One of a handful of residents who never left, Cortez became a go-to delivery service, driving and knocking on doors to deliver food, batteries, and supplies. She remembers fielding calls from neighbors who couldn’t get in the area and checking on their homes. She had no power, no water and no gas, but “I wasn’t going anywhere.”
Cortez’s fierce, nurturing spirit is one of the myriad things Lorena Flores admires about her boss and friend.
Flores, 49, of Pasadena, is one of El Patrón’s first employees, hired in 2015. She chose Cortez to be godmother to her son. Life has been especially hard since the restaurant closed, with Flores working two days a week at the restaurant she served at on her days off from El Patrón. She picked up shifts in other places too, but the Altadena favorite is home away from home for her.
“Weekends and evenings would be busy and people come here and sit outside, they sip their margaritas and watch the sunset, they get such a good view of the mountains,” Flores said.
A lot of the love and loyalty customers bestow on El Patrón is because of Cortez, who hasn’t met a sports team or school she couldn’t support. The framed thank you notes, photos and certificates hanging on the restaurant walls are proof. They are bookmarked by streams of colorful papel picado and vivid serape blankets tucked into corners.
“She has a lot of strengths. She’s a fighter. She helps everybody,” Flores said. “She is like her mom, Doña Rosa, who kept saying she’s fine even when she was fighting cancer.”
As for being back, “I’m so happy, the feeling is good,” Flores said.
René Amy, 64, dropped by the restaurant to check in on Cortez. The longtime Altadena community activist had helped set up giant “Open” banners outside (borrowed from nearby Grocery Outlet) and spread the word about the reopening. He lost his home to the fire and is renting in nearby La Cañada.
“We’ve got to support our own and stick together,” Amy said. “I’m very hopeful as her normal clientele has dispersed, the literal army of workers here will take over.”
Crews from the Army Corps of Engineers and officers from the nearby sheriffs station did show up for opening day, a hopeful sign for Cortez. Around the restaurant are what remains of the burned Bunny Museum up the street, Lifeline Fellowship Church across the way, and Side Pie Pizza at the corner.
Cortez points out the burned bottom half of a tree in front of the restaurant, musing someone must have put that fire out and saved El Patrón.
“There are so many incredible angels who are helping me,” she said, nodding at Amy. “It has been a rollercoaster, hasn’t it? You worry, you have to deal with insurance, but I have a need to help people, Altadena is my people and my family.”
Before the fires, Mike and Celeste Miller of Pasadena made a habit of frequenting El Patrón for Taco Tuesdays, when Mike would order one of every kind of meat taco and Celeste would enjoy a 42 oz. margarita outside, with its views of the San Gabriels.
The food was generous and delicious, and they enjoyed the service and family atmosphere, Celeste said.
When the tough stuff finds her, the alliance between Cortez and her customers helps boost her hope. She doesn’t know how much business she’ll have in the months ahead, but she’s staying put.
“I bought my home after I bought my restaurant here because I wanted to be part of Altadena,” Cortez said. “If I’m here, it’s worth something.”
Another bright spot is the birth of her first grandchild, a boy, who arrived almost to a month after the fires. His grandmother is already anticipating mushing up beans for his first solid meal.
In the end, her first family, memorialized in photos around El Patrón, and in the paper rose she’s set to her hair, have her heart. Cortez said she’s sure her Mama Rosa is bringing to bear all of heaven’s aid for her.
“She always worries about me, but at the same time, she always said, ‘Mija, si, si puede,’ ‘Mija, you can do it,’” she said.