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There might not be a band or lunch specials, but owner Danny Cardoso will serve up fond memories at Santa Fe Taqueria’s closing party on Sept. 25 as the nearly 40-year-old Mexican restaurant enters its last week in business.
“We got a lot of requests from people when they heard, like, ‘Oh no, you have to have a party!’ so we’ll have a party, but nothing formal,” Cardoso says. “We stayed open during COVID, and even though we were successful, that was still a very stressful time.”
Cardoso announced through Santa Fe’s social media accounts on Aug. 29 that the Nob Hill taqueria will close at the end of September. He tells WW that Santa Fe’s lease is up for renewal, and rather than pay a rent increase, Cardoso will end his run on a high note, while he can still enjoy his retirement. Cardoso’s exit from the restaurant world has been a long time coming. He’d already stepped away from downtown Portland’s Mayas Taqueria and Lloyd District’s Aztec Willie’s Taqueria, the latter of which he sold to his wife.
“My parents were from Mexico, but I had a different perspective,” Cardoso says. “When I was growing up, it was kind of like now, where there were all these immigration issues, and the Latin American culture is bad, it’s ugly, it’s everything wrong about it, and you don’t hear about the beauty of it. When I opened up the restaurants, I wanted to show that wonderful, beautiful side of Latin culture.”
Cardoso counts Santa Fe Taqueria, which opened in 1986, as one of Oregon’s oldest and longest-running taquerias. His goal with all three of his restaurants was to showcase the full range of Mexican culinary influences in his kitchens and artistic influences in his dining rooms’ decor. Santa Fe Taqueria had weathered the Alphabet District’s bougie makeover, serving up late-night burritos to generations of neighborhood denizens and college kids.
Former employees and longtime diners have RSVP’d to Santa Fe’s closing party, where Cardoso says he and current staff will reminisce and look back on the taqueria’s storied run. Cardoso plans to take a year or two off from working to see if he can stay retired, though he’s hesitant to describe his exit from the restaurant world that way.
“I’m still young and healthy, and I want to go do other things,” Cardoso says. “When I left Aztec Willie’s, it was like a giant Amazon warehouse in my brain was emptied out. You don’t even know the stress you’re carrying around in terms of responsibility, and tracking, and all the minute details it takes to run a business, and restaurants are chaotic by nature.”
EAT: Santa Fe Taqueria, 831 NW 23rd Ave., 503-220-0406, instagram.com/santafetaqueria. 11 am–10 pm Sunday–Thursday, 11 am–11 pm Friday–Saturday.