Event: Los Tios 42nd Anniversary Meet, Greet & Eat with Gary Adair

Montage of the #14, queso, fajitas, tortillas &
Anniversary nachos

The Restaurant Industry in Houston is a mixture of Family businesses, Regional and National Chains, and small local places built around a Chef and his/her menus.  Out of those three categories, Los Tios definitely falls into the first category on several levels.  Not too long ago, some friends at a local TV station welcomed a colleague from New York to Houston.  As per usual Tex-Mex and/or Barbecue were on their Menu.  Los  Tios is one of those usual, Wednesday night Tex-Mex casual places you want to bring your friends and family from out of town to enjoy a good representation of good Tex-Mex, and based on owner Gary Adair's plan, that suits him just fine.

Several guests from the Houston Fooderati and their plus ones were invited to a casual dinner with Gary & Betsy Adair on a Thursday evening.  Though the purpose was to commemorate 42 years of continuous operation for Los Tios--an amazing feat for a city that will have a new restaurant come in to rave reviews only to close within less than a year for no clear reason--what we received was a slice of Houston restaurant history, courtesy of Gary and Betsy Adair, which was worth waaaayyyy more than the meal to be sure.

Margaritas anyone?!?!

The Los Tios story begins in 1970 as the story of Tom and Rosemary Garbett.  They founded Los Tios Mexican Restaurant in Southwest Houston at Bissonnet at Fondren, which was soon followed with a second restaurant at Westheimer at Tanglewilde. Sadly,  not long after the second location opened Tom Garbett suddenly passed away. Mrs. Garbett was left with four young children and two fledgling restaurants. Despite advice to get out while the getting was good, she elected to continue with the restaurants and madeher own way. Her success from that point forward is legen--wait for it--dary!    She continued to helm this local group of restaurants until she sold them to the Adair family--founders/owners of Skeeter's Mesquite Grille--in AD 2000.

Gary Adair:  Restaurateur and Storyteller

From there the story evolves into the Adairs learning what to keep, what to change, and a major lesson in showing trust to long-term staff who know the customer base better than anyone else.  They have to be doing something right--Martha who served our party during this Dinner has worked for Los Tios for over 20 years.  Gary Adair isn't too shabby himself.  Skeeter's Mesquite Grill was founded in 1988.  Mr. Adair went to Westbury High School and attended U of H, earning a degree in marketing.  He is also QUITE the STORYTELLER--he kept us well entertained with his story of how he proposed to Betsy in a Los Tios restaurant years and years ago.  He also let us know about the various combo meals that have gone on and off the menu, but are still available, the staff knows them all and knows how to ring them up much like the Secret Menu from In-N-Out Burger.  Given how long term the customer base and staff are, sounds like things are working just fine for their operation.

Puff Queso at Los Tios

The dinner opened with their anniversary nachos (tortilla chips, fajita beef/chicken, frijoles, melted cheese, guacamole, jalapeños) While we were welcome to order from the menu, several of the combos not listed on the menu were touted, and I went for the No. 14 (cheese enchilada, beef enchilada with chili gravy, quesadillas) but I also ordered a puff Queso on the side.   The Puff Queso is unique and has to been seen to believed!  It is included with several of the listed and unlisted combos, and is made the same way by the same older Latin Ladies for decades.  Its basically a slow fried corn tortilla that... inflates and is then covered with queso.  It has a very delicate texture that melds well with the cheese.  I'll also add that the quesadillas are quite tasty, the chicken in the chicken enchilada has a nice smokey quality, and the beef enchilada with the red chili gravy is savoury, peppery and nicely spiced.

We also tried two of their signature margaritas--The Diamond Margarita and The Classic (white tequila, triple sec and lime juice).  They were available frozen or on the rocks--had good lime flavour, just enough tequlia for a kick, but not overpowering by far.  Towards the end we had a sampling of their desserts--regular flan and flan with chocolate, standard and strawberry Tres Leches cake and Sopapillas with cinnamon & sugar.  These were the proper Mexican style desserts, with some embellishments here and there.  Overall a wonderful meal with lots of wonderful yarn spun by Gary and Betsy Adair.

As an Economics Professor, I will also add that Gary shared some interesting insights into running a restaurant--especially on the care needed when taking over a long-established business such as Los Tios.  One of the lessons I took away from there was being judicious with regards to changes.  Even things such as upgrades to the restroom may not be well received when the long term regulars are used to a certain configuration, and handling customer responses carefully and with respect for the regular customers' feelings goes a long way.  A business owner-operator can never underestimate the value of customer good will.

I would personally like to thank Gary & Betsy Adair for the invite to this dinner, and greatly appreciate the privilege of sharing this information with you, my dear readers.  Los Tios is one of those long term good family Tex-Mex restaurants that we may take for granted at times, because it seems it's always there for us.  However, such restaurants, while not the flashy chef centered single properties like Uchi, do deserve recognition and if it has been a while since you've been here, you might want to come try them again with fresh eyes.

Los Tios has four Houston area locations.  This lovely dinner was at:

4840 Beechnut
Houston, TX 77096
Phone: (713) 660-6244

Hours:
Sun-Thu 11 AM to 10 PM
Fri-Sat 11 AM to 11 PM

And remember to Eat Happy, Y'all!!!
早安，你们!!!