New Mexican restaurant opens in downtown Elgin

A new Mexican restaurant in downtown Elgin features family recipes handed down through three generations.

Las Gorditas De Don Angel opened at 165 E. Highland Ave., which had been vacant for about five years after another Mexican restaurant closed. The menu consists of more than 20 varieties of "gorditas" - which are akin to corn tortilla pockets stuffed with a variety of ingredients, including pork, eggs, potatoes, steak and cactus - along with burritos and tacos.

Owner Jazmin Chacon, 23, is following the footsteps of her parents, who own a restaurant by the same name in Cicero, and two more run by family in Joliet and Melrose Park. The Elgin restaurant opened Jan. 28.

The recipes for the stuffings and handmade gorditas come from her maternal grandmother, who lives in the Mexican state of Durango and opened a gorditas restaurant about 50 years ago, Chacon said. Gordita means "chubby," "Don Angel" is her grandfather, and the restaurant's cow logo alludes to his cows back in Mexico, she added.

Chacon said she picked Elgin because she has family in town. "I've come to visit all my life, and we were always interested because there are a lot of opportunities here."

With the exception of a $2.25 gordita stuffed with dried hot peppers imported from Mexico, the gorditas on the menu are $1.90 each. That price represents a mere 15-cent increase since Chacon's parents first opened the Cicero location 13 years ago, she said.

"My parents are not about making money. They just want people to be happy," she said, crediting their help with opening her restaurant.

Chacon employs eight staff members, who are being trained by various family members, she said.

"Even if it looks simple, there is a way that the gordita is supposed to look."