How Mama Ninfa Introduced Fajitas to Houston — And the World

The historical past of fajitas dates again to Mexico within the Thirties. Retailers and farmers touring backwards and forwards to Texas with cattle have been typically compensated within the type of inexpensive and fewer fascinating cuts of meat. Skirt steak, often known as “fajitas” — a Spanish phrase loosely translating into “little belt,” referring to the lengthy, skinny items of meat — was reworked when grilled over coals.

“They made some iconic and exquisite dishes with these cuts,” says Patricia “Patti” Delgado, government chef of Ninfa’s Uptown location. “For hundreds of years, these traditions stayed.” However fajitas — scorching skillets of grilled meats — didn’t turn into a staple of Tex-Mex delicacies till a Houston lady shared it together with her group.

Maria Ninfa Rodriguez Laurenzo — greatest generally known as Mama Ninfa — was a drive to be reckoned with. Born in Harlingen, Texas, in 1924 with household from Monterrey, Mexico, Rodriguez Laurenzo was considered one of 12 siblings raised within the farmlands of the Rio Grande Valley. She later married her husband, Domenic Thomas Laurenzo, an Italian man from Windfall, Rhode Island, earlier than shifting to Houston.

Unique Ninfa’s

“Nobody labored more durable than my dad and mom,” says Mama Ninfa’s daughter, Phyllis Laurenzo Mandola. She remembers her mom and father waking up each morning at 4 a.m. to kickstart the manufacturing at their East Finish wholesale pizza and tortilla manufacturing facility, Rio Grande Tortilla Firm. The job wasn’t glamorous. Laurenzo Mandola says it made the “revenue of pennies,” nevertheless it helped pay for meals and schooling for her and her siblings.

Issues modified drastically for the household when, in 1969, Domenic died all of a sudden, leaving Mama Ninfa a widow and single mom of 5. Laurenzo Mandola, then solely 15, says the pizza and tortilla enterprise struggled. Mama Ninfa noticed the writing on the wall, however failure was not an choice. Mama Ninfa referred to as a household assembly: The household would promote tacos al carbon, she declared. They have been the identical tortillas filled with grilled meats that Mama Ninfa had rising up within the Rio Grande Valley and had seen throughout her frequent travels again to Mexico. And in 1973, roughly a yr earlier than Mama Ninfa turned 50, the Laurenzo household reworked a portion of the tortilla and pizza manufacturing facility right into a 10-table restaurant serving tacos al carbon with Ninfa’s signature inexperienced salsa — a mix of tomatillo and avocado. “We did it understanding we’d succeed, however we didn’t assume we’d set the world on fireplace by introducing this kind of taco,” Laurenzo Mandola says.

Unique Ninfa’s

It took a yr and a few schooling for the fajitas to catch on, says Laurenzo Mandola, including that household needed to educate residents eat fajitas with their palms. (“They have been used to consuming crispy tacos”). However strains have been quickly out the door, and the restaurant shortly stuffed up with individuals who turned buddies, Laurenzo Mandola says. “It was like they have been coming to our house,” she says. “That was our philosophy.”

The Laurenzo household had little time to be shocked or have fun their success. They needed to act quick. Laurenzo Mandola says the household moved the tortilla manufacturing facility, including extra tables to the restaurant, which continued to develop and was fueled — in keeping with restaurant lore — by Mama Ninfa. She introduced extra elements, recipes, and even stunning clothes and blouses for employees from Mexico, Delgado says.

The “Mama Ninfa” nickname shortly caught on when Maria stepped right into a beneficiant, matriarchal function for her employees and the group. “She was very maternal, very loving, and, on high of that, a really nice cook dinner,” says Laurenzo Mandola, who remembers her mom inviting youngsters from the neighborhood in for tortillas slathered with butter.

“She knew that’s what it took to make her enterprise profitable. She had it in her coronary heart to make individuals really feel welcome with open arms,” says Juan Carlos, a common supervisor who has labored on the Uptown location for 20 years. However Mama Ninfa was no pushover. “She walked right into a room, and also you knew you weren’t going to benefit from this lady. She made you wish to work to please her and do a very good job,” Laurenzo Mandola says. “It was a particular reward.”

Unique Ninfa’s

A number of different Houston restaurant homeowners quickly adopted in Mama Ninfa’s footsteps. “You couldn’t have a Mexican restaurant with out fajitas,” Laurenzo Mandola says. Finally, fajitas and inexperienced salsa turned a Tex-Mex commonplace in Houston and across the nation, and Mama Ninfa would go on to encourage an entire era of restaurateurs and cooks.

Tony Mandola, Laurenzo Mandola’s late husband and her brother’s first-grade pal, was one of many first “grillmen” at Ninfa’s. He and Laurenzo Mandola later owned Blue Oyster Bar and Cajun Italian restaurant Tony Mandola’s Gulf Coast Kitchen. Mandola’s brother Vincent Mandola, who died in July 2020, went on to personal Nino’s, Vincent’s, Grappino’s, and Pronto Cucinino. His brother Damian Mandola launched Damian’s Cucina Italiana and co-founded the unique Carrabba’s, and Mama Ninfa’s oldest son, Roland Laurenzo, opened El Tiempo in 1998. Now with over a dozen areas all through Texas, El Tiempo has carried on the household’s legacy and equally launched the town to the anafre, a tabletop Mexican grill on which the restaurant serves parrillada. Laurenzo Mandola says a number of Unique Ninfa’s staff have additionally opened eating places in Mama Ninfa’s honor, a few of which have stored her title, together with Houston eating places in Memorial and on Gulf Freeway, in addition to in Waco, Texas.

“It was one woman who impressed lots of people,” Laurenzo Mandola says.

Unique Ninfa’s

Right this moment, “each Tex-Mex restaurant has fajitas in the event that they know what’s good for them,” Laurenzo Mandola says. At Ninfa’s, scorching platters of fajitas are served with home made tortillas, rice, beans, pico de gallo, bitter cream, and guacamole. The recipe remains to be the identical, with skirt steak cooked equally over a wood-fired grill, which provides the fajita filling its particular taste and noteworthy char. “That’s part of our tradition and our custom,” Delgado says. “It’s the simplicity of the cooking technique that lets the fajita shine by itself. You possibly can odor the wooden and the fajita cooking. All of these issues are nostalgic.”

Although Ninfa’s is now not a part of the household (the Unique Ninfa’s on Navigation was offered to Legacy Eating places in 2005 following the restaurant’s chapter in 1996), Mama Ninfa’s affect endures. Laurenzo Mandola says she nonetheless grapples together with her household’s far-reaching affect. She remembers being served fajitas throughout a 2019 abroad journey to Jordan. “My brother and I checked out one another, and we have been like, ‘Oh my goodness,’” she says.

Unique Ninfa’s

Tales handed down generations inside the restaurant and Houston group proceed to explain Mama Ninfa as a pioneer and pillar within the metropolis, one whose generosity, ardour, and drive, notably as a Latina entrepreneur within the Nineteen Seventies, won’t ever be forgotten. “She was the one who opened doorways for different Latinas to take possibilities and be entrepreneurs. She opened our doorways, and I don’t take it flippantly. She’s handed down the torch,” Delgado says.

The crux of the restaurant, many say, was Mama Ninfa’s hospitality.

“That’s the heartbeat of the restaurant — her kindness,” Delgado says. It’s one thing that Delgado says is instilled within the restaurant from the second diners stroll in.

“We wish the expertise at all times to be how Mama Ninfa did it,” Delgado says. “It was with a lot love.”