Chili craze: Hoosiers used to kick back at chili parlors
(MIRROR INDY) — Decades before the well-known downtown Mexican restaurants of Acapulco Joe’s (1961-2019) and El Sol de Tala (1979-2015) captivated the taste buds of Indy residents, there were chili parlors. Yes … chili is Mexican food. And yes, people enjoyed eating it in parlors.
In the late 19th century and early 20th century, working class “Chili Queens” operated chili (also spelled “chile”) stalls in southern Texas and northern Mexico. The filling and cheap-to-make dish was an affordable and profitable venture.
By the early 1900s, chili parlors made their way to the city of Indianapolis. Some chili parlors also sold tamales.
Not all chili parlors were Latino owned or operated, but there were a few that were operated by Latino men, some as early as 1907.
Thomas Garcia’s first chili parlor location was at 217 N. Capitol Ave. and later relocated to 325 Indiana Ave. Not much is known about him besides the fact that he spent the last years of his culinary residency in Indianapolis on “The Avenue.” He died in 1910 and is buried in Crown Hill Cemetery.
Non-Latino chili parlor owners advertised their chili as “genuine Mexican chili,” which is evidenced in a Feb. 2, 1919, W.C. Himes ad in the Indianapolis Star, advertising the chili parlor at 802 N. Illinois St.
In that same paper was Mexican Joe’s Chili Parlor at 109 N. Capitol and 414 Massachusetts Ave., operated by Bruno Aleman. His ad stated that he was the “oldest importer of Mexican chili pepper and products.”
Aleman was in Indy in the 1910s, but he disappeared from public records by 1920. However, chili parlors with similar names to “Mexican Joe” were common until the 1930s.
We know a little more about chili parlor owner Phillip Gomez. He was born in 1895 as Felípe Gómez Jáuregui in Temacapulín, Jalisco, Mexico. Phillip settled in Indianapolis sometime between 1916-1917.
From his 1917 World War I military draft card, we know he was married with a 5-month-old daughter, and that he began his initial paperwork for citizenship and worked at a local department store called The Grand Leader.
Gomez lived at 1025 N. West Street with his in-laws, roughly where St. Mary’s Early Childhood Center is located. His wife was Margaret Dunlap, and they had one child named Marguerite. He was a member of Indy’s first historically Black Roman Catholic Church, St. Bridget’s.
Public records show that he established his chili parlor at 450 W. 11th St. sometime between 1927-1928, but not much is known about his parlor, including the name, because there were no public advertisements.
Sometime between 1934-1935, Gomez’s chili parlor closed. On the 1940 U.S. census, Gomez was marked as unemployed and not seeking work. Perhaps due to the incurable and debilitating neurological disorder called Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), of which he passed away at the age of 52 in 1947. Like Garcia, he is buried in Crown Hill, unfortunately in an unmarked grave.
When you cozy up to a bowl of warm chili, please think of Tom, Bruno and Phillip.
Why chili?
Chili is short for “chili con carne” or chili with meat, or “chili con carne colorado,” which means red chili with meat. These dishes originated in the Indigenous lands presently known as Mexico. The stew was first recorded in history by Spanish colonial missionaries in the 1500s.
It was a simple dish with beans, tomatoes and dried chilies, such as jalapeño, ancho, guajillo or cayenne. The “con carne,” was later added after cattle were introduced into the New World by the Spaniards.
There were several waves of popularity, first by rancheros or vaqueros, Mexican cowboys or cattlemen who moved cattle across long distances in the 19th century. The ranchero’s simple dish consisted of “tasajo” (dried salted beef), animal lard and dried chili peppers that were boiled with water into a stew and shared at encampments.