When Ivy Berubes, 22, orders a Shirley Temple on the Sarapes Mexican Restaurant bar, they make it for her regardless that it’s not on the menu. The menu additionally doesn’t listing “The Tommy Bowl” — a deconstructed burrito — however Tommy Agramonte, 20, will get to order it; in any case, it’s named after him. Sade Guess, 21, swears by the birria tacos, one other off-menu merchandise.
Situated in Enfield, a quiet Connecticut suburb close to the border of Massachusetts, Sarapes is owned and operated by the Chavez Mellado household, who immigrated from Mexico within the Eighties.
“It’s one of the reasons why we’ve been able to maintain ourselves in this country,” stated Adrian Martinez Chavez, the photographer for this story, whose grandparents Eduardo Chavez Solano and Cutberta Mellado de Chavez began the restaurant. His grandfather handed away a number of years in the past; Adrian’s grandmother and his aunt María Del Carmen Chavez run the place now, and his cousins Xochitl and Zuyuani Llanas, 22 and 20, are each managers.
What retains these 20-somethings coming again to Sarapes isn’t just the key(ish) menu gadgets or the occasional impromptu conga line that snakes across the cubicles. The area is a bodily reminder of their kinship. Once they come residence to Sarapes, they will return to the place they began.
“My cousin called it ‘the headquarters’ because that’s where we would always meet to talk about stuff,” Xochitl stated.
