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The Vega's Cafe Story
I. The Beginning ~ In early 1978, the original Vega's Cafe opened its doors to the world in the Hyde Park Shopping Center located on the SE corner of West Charleston Boulevard and Arville Street. The restaurant began in a single storefront unit occupying approximately 1000 square feet and able to accommodate 36 customers at a time. Celia and her husband Ernie Calderon had just moved from San Diego, California to Las Vegas to open a“Tortilleria”(a Tortilla Factory) but decided instead to purchase the recently opened restaurant from Celia’s brother.Celia’s brother had selected their families surname “VEGA” to name the restaurant, so the existing name was still perfect! With Celia and Ernie now operating the restaurant and introducing Las Vegans to Celia’s unique Mexican cuisine, Vega’s Cafe soon became more and more successful and developed a deserved reputation for consistently exceptional food. Celia had two young children (Silvia and Ernie Jr.) and a husband that were very important to her and she would feed them the same food she served out of her kitchen. She would not serve anything that she did not eat herself. To that end, Celia never cooks with lard or pork and her customers certainly appreciated the quality and care taken in preparing Celia’s signature Mexican dishes. No matter what a patron ordered from the menu, Celia’s cooking always tasted wonderful and her customers never left the table unsatisfied. Long time patrons remember with fondness the early days (before Celia and Ernie had a liquor License) when customers had to walk to the bar next door to purchase their libations, then “Brown Bag” back to the Cafe. |
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II. Growth~ As Vega’s Cafés reputation grew, the restaurant needed to expand to meet demand by leasing two adjoining storefront units that eventually almost tripled the seating capacity. The decorating and remodeling was all accomplished by Celia and Ernie Calderon themselves. One of the most memorable items of the original décor is now hanging on the wall of their newest location. It‘s a portrait painted on a five foot high by twenty foot long canvas. It was painted by an artist in 1991 and depicts the Calderon family in an old Mexican pueblo setting. After a closure in 1993 the Calderon’s received many requests from loyal customers to re-open. In 1994 they began operating a much smaller version of their restaurant at Decatur and Smoke Ranch and called it “El Calderon”.
They continued to operate at that location for 11 years until deciding to not only expand, but to re-open the family restaurant once again. Yes, Vega’s Cafe has been revived! Thanks to the many loyal customers from the early days, the Calderon family (Celia, Ernie Sr., Ernie Jr.; his wife Miriam, and Silvia Calderon-Lourenco) have taken advantage of this opportunity to create this fabulous new location while continuing to serve their traditional homemade Mexican cuisine. Vegas Cafe is one of a dying breed of restaurants where the food is still hand-crafted to order. One example of this is Celia’s home made flour tortillas that are just too good to pass up, no matter what low-carb diet you may be on. Celia takes a lot of pride in still serving the exceptional meals she is famous for. III. Celia's World Famous Chile Rellenos Throughout Vega's Cafe’s History, Celia’s Chile Relleno has been the flagship on their menu. When the Calderon’s started their first restaurant venture in 1978, they learned a lot about how to run a successful business. The experiences that followed dictated occasional changes, but the family resisted compromise. Celia began by cooking some of her childhood favorite dishes from Guadalajara in the state of Jalisco, Mexico where she is from. Constructive criticism came from some of their very first customers when they would ask for a sauce to be added to her Chile Relleno. At the time, Celia was not accustomed to using a sauce over her relleno, but she thought she would try a white sauce that she remembered her family using on other traditional Mexican dishes. The white sauce is very light with the consistency of gravy with long cuts of white onion and bits of tomatoes mixed into the sauce. The customers loved it, and to this day it remains a big hit. This is attested to by the fact some of our long time patrons have actually eaten hundreds of them over the last 30 years! To the Calderon’s knowledge, Celia’s sauce is not served over a Chile Relleno anywhere else. Most local Mexican restaurants use the long green “ Anaheim Chile” for their rellenos. Celia resisted compromise on quality and continues to make her authentic, traditional homemade Mexican food for those with a discriminating taste that were not satisfied with the “run of the mill dishes” served at franchise restaurants. Celia’s relleno has always been made with the “Pasilla” chile pepper which she feels has a much more distinctive, slightly sweeter taste. In the early Vega’s Cafe years, it was particularly hard to find the Pasilla in Las Vegas because the pepper was only grown in Mexico. But undaunted the Calderon’s searched for a supplier and eventually, through one of their loyal customers, found a consistent local distributor for the Pasilla. When you dine at Vega's Cafe, it is as if you were dining in Celia’s home as a guest. The Calderon family realizes this and has made it their mission to make each customer feel like part of the family.
Thank you for your patronage of Celia's Vega’s Cafe. The entire Calderon Family
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