Salt Lake City’s about to get a new Mexican restaurant — one with a century of history behind it.
El Cholo, a chain of Mexican restaurants in southern California that recently celebrated its centennial, is getting ready to open its first Utah location at 2166 S. 900 East in Salt Lake City’s Sugar House neighborhood.
The restaurant is aiming to open on Oct. 16. It will have to wait, though, for its liquor license. The Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Services commission declined to grant a liquor license at its Sept. 28 meeting, citing a policy only to give licenses to businesses that are immediately ready to operate. The next DABS meeting is scheduled for Oct. 26, though commissioners left open the possibility for a special meeting before then.
Alejandro Borquez and his wife, Rosa, opened the original El Cholo in 1923, and it’s touted as the first Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles. The company now operates six restaurants in southern California. The Sugar House location will be the chain’s first outside California.
(courtesy El Cholo) The original El Cholo restaurant in Los Angeles, seen here in the 1930s. The Mexican restaurant opened in 1923 and spawned others. The chain's seventh location — the first outside southern California — is preparing to open in Salt Lake City's Sugar House neighborhood in fall 2023.
Ron Salisbury, the 90-year-old third-generation owner of the El Cholo chain, claims a deep connection to Utah. His great-grandfather was an early Utah pioneer, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who emigrated from England in 1849 and settled in Utah.
Later generations would move to Arizona and California, but Utah always held a special place in Salisbury’s heart: He attended Brigham Young University in 1954, married a young woman from Utah, and their daughter was born in the Beehive State.
“I wanted to mark my 90th birthday with something I felt was important to the business in the future,” Salisbury said. “California is becoming less and less of a desirable place to have restaurants, and Utah is the opposite; it is looking more and more like a place you want to do business. The generations that will follow me will see the goodness made by having a future here in Utah.”
Salisbury is passing the torch to the family’s fourth generation, his son Brendon, as El Cholo makes its debut in Salt Lake City.
The first El Cholo — at 1121 S. Western Ave., Los Angeles — was originally called The Sonora Cafe, for the state in Mexico where the Borquezes lived. Alejandro changed the name in 1925, after he heard the phrase “El Cholo” given to Spanish settlers at the time, and he grew fond of it. One of the first menu items was the Sonora enchilada, a standard dish served in Sonora.
“There were no combination plates in the beginning; it was very basic California Mexican cooking,” Ron Salisbury said. “You could have a taco, chili relleno, tamale, beans and rice. It was very simple. We still use those same recipes for those core items.”
Over six generations, the restaurant has become a cornerstone of the city’s history and culture. Its warm ambiance and authentic flavors have brought family and friends together, strengthening bonds over shared plates and stories.
“When I run into people, and sometimes generations of people who have been eating at El Cholo, they tell me ‘I love your restaurant,’” Salisbury said. “People like things, sure, but to love something is really special. I realized we had this connection because we provide a genuine, warm hospitality that has never varied and we have developed relationships with people.”
Salisbury added, “I would feel if we didn’t create the same with the people in Utah, then we failed.”
