“I call myself retired, but I’m not,” said Daniel Fagen when asked about his position at Eduardo’s Mexican Kitchen.Following a successful career in oil, running a Mexican eatery was the last thing he thought he would be doing during his retirement.
In 2007, Mely’s Mexican Kitchen went up for sale, and Fagen decided to jump into the food industry alongside his father-in-law, daughter-in-law and others under Mely’s Investment Group.
The group hired managers to run the restaurant. In 2011, the restaurant was renamed Eduardo’s and changed locations. When the restaurant passed through some growing pains as it let go of the brothers in management, it kept the namesake of Eduardo’s.
Amid adjustments among managers and shareholders, Eduardo’s found itself in the center of a pandemic. Although COVID-19 forced Eduardo’s to cut back on staff and make fewer orders, it gave new management the opportunity to learn all the ins and outs of running the business, Fagen said.
The business survived the pandemic and began to gain notoriety as Eduardo’s, but some clientele are still discovering their former favorite Mexican restaurant is still around, just under a new name, Fagen said. But people keep coming back, and the newer customers stay for the fresh food and customer service, he said.
“Everything we make is from scratch. ... Homemade. We do our own tamales. That’s the thing about us. It’s really kind of special and unique,” he said.
Eduardo’s clientele consists of some local celebrities, including NASA employees, Fagen said. But everyone gets treated with the same warmth and respect, he said.
“You want everybody to have a good experience,” Fagen said. “And so we’ve tried to have that philosophy here: to be happy, be upbeat, give them good service.”
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