Happy Cinco!!

Every year on this day, I think of one place and one place only.  No, not Cabo San Lucas, Puerta Vallarta, or even good old TJ, but El Cholo Cafe in Santa Monica, CA.  This home of delicious margaritas and seriously diet-unfriendly cuisine, was good enough to put me in a hideous senorita dress and employ me until I found something I was better at.

My career at El Cholo lasted five long years, in that long, hot dress.  Still don't get it.  Why the hell did we have to wear those long, polyester, very ugly, unsafe to carry trays up a flight of stairs in, dresses?  I've been to Mexico, no one there looks that ridiculous.  And the guys got to wear the easy, comfy, even stylish for a moment, Guayabera shirts.  A little sexist?  


Still, I made some really wonderful friends there that I still have today. 


And Cinco de Mayo was the one day out of the year the women didn't have to wear that punishing costume.  We wore jeans and t-shirts for whatever brand of tequila we were slinging in particular that day.


And I also have to thank whoever was managing El Cholo on the day when we took the photos shown in the slideshow at the end of this old-school Wrenches and Wenches sketch, Margaritaville.


Oh I miss you, Paul Bunch!