We'd been driving for several hours and were now moving through the Coachella Valley in slow motion. We were stricken with hunger and couldn't come to an agreement about where to stop. The Coachella Valley is now host to dozens and dozens of chain restaurants advertised by huge billboards as big as a house. But it was all so corporate and sterile. The hunt continued.
So we decided that we'd have Mexican -- I'd had a sizzling bowl of menudo for breakfast and just wanted more -- and I knew just the place. We continued a few miles futher down I-10 and got off the interstate on the outskirts of Indio. Now there's a town with charm. Right alongside the I-10 is old US Route 99, the highway of choice until I-10 came through in the early '60s and crashed the party.
As we drove south down old Route 99, I was struck by the abandoned look of everything. Here is a town, and at the same time, not a town. The sun-desiccated buildings scattered along this stretch of the highway are spread out widely, with empty lots, desert foliage and billboards as punctuation. Very few of the structures date more recently than 1965. There are plenty of googie-era coffee shops and restaurants, all of them boarded up. Abandoned gas stations continue their afterlives as sentries on the corners. On the east side of the road is the railroad right of way, and backing up to it are decrepit warehouses and loading docks. Interspersed along the route are old roadside motels, most of them gone to seed or condemned and closed. There was one that managed to limp into this century with a bright new pink paint job and an attractive sign. But it was still just a '50s era motel. If they get thirty bucks a throw I'd be surprised.
We arrived at Macario's, a non-descript, low-slung converted house right there on the main drag. As I pulled off the highway, I realized why the place has stuck in my head and become a favorite. No sidewalks, no curbs, and no paving in the parking lot. You just pull off the highway and park. I was going about ten miles per hour faster than I should have been (I was hungry) and laid on the brakes in the gravel. For a moment my wheels locked up, producing that incorrigable sound of gravel kicking up into the fenders. A cloud of dust continued off into the dirt lot as my car came to a stop. As I got out of the car, I noticed that across the lot there was the remnant of another business, now just a foundation covered in dust and tumbleweeds. Leading up to the foundation was a painted red sidewalk, its rounded corner just peeking out of the dirt and debris of decades of decline.
The restaurant had a little garden out front to provide a respite from the blazing sun. There's a little ornamental tangerine tree, a strip of astroturf, and a whitewashed fountain. The brick structure itself was also whitewashed, but needed a new coat. We headed in and were seated promptly. It was warm inside. As I looked around, I had to ask myself once again why this place keeps drawing me back. Nothing about it is impressive. The interior was rather dimly lit by two large skylights, but there weren't enough of them. There is no ceiling, just the underside of the roof, joists and all, painted aqua, a color that clashed with the loud print of the carpet squares on the floor. The faux wrought iron provided faux old world charm.
Our waitress struggled with her english. She was working from a routine and didn't seem to understand the things she was saying. "Jew ready to owe-der?" My wife asked for a mini-bottle of Sangria. The kids had Cokes and my mother-in-law was sticking with water. I asked for a Negro Modelo, taking pains to pronounce it in flawless spanish. I'm not sure why I did that, except maybe to try to best the waitress in foreign language skill. I sounded ridiculous.
The chips were thick and warm. The salsa was spicey and delicious. My beer hit the spot and began to repair the damage I had inflicted on myself the night before. Still, the food was, on the whole, unremarkable. It was a bit unnerving watching the waitress bring my hot menudo to the table as it sloshed from its bowl. I was hungry and wanted every drop. "Everything? Ees OK?" the waitress said, over and over. She was reciting from her english script.
Mediocre food and service aside, we had a fantastic lunch together. Here was a mom and pop restaurant on the edge of civilization, struggling along. So many businesses along Route 99 had folded, yet Macario's remains. Everything about the place reminds you of how it used to be, as if you were seeing the world through a black and white photograph. Macario's has nothing on El Torito, but it is real Mexican food, served by a real Mexican staff to real Mexican customers. I glanced up at the restaurant sign as we walked out to our car. Its sun-bleached corrugated plastic panels shook in the high wind. Finally, I put my finger on it. It's the timelessness of this place. No one cares that everywhere else 1953 has been buried under a relentless march of modern development. I can even see it in that decrepit sign, fighting gravity, and wind, and sun and rain, on and on and on.
As I pulled back out onto the highway, toothpick dangling from my lips, I couldn't resist the urge. I punched down on the accelerator, kicking up more gravel and another little cloud of dust, which moved silently back across the dirt parking lot.
