Cotija’s chips, salsa and guacamole are back at pop-up

The search for Petaluma’s beloved Cotija chips and salsa started shortly after Cotija restaurant’s closure in 2012 and after nearly a decade, has culminated in its revival as a monthly pop-up offering that has original Cotija fans clamoring for more. The search started with one Petaluman’s passion for the restaurant’s chips and salsa, and with the help of the social media, would eventually inspire one of the restaurateurs’ daughters to revive Cotija’s chips and salsa, as well as their much loved guacamole.

“This is the best chips and salsa combination I’ve ever had,” says Mark Ramirez, the spark behind Cotija’s rebirth. “Cotija was my favorite Petaluma Mexican restaurant. When it closed, I followed Benny to the Outlet Mall food court. When he closed there, I lost track of him. I always missed his food but more than anything, I missed his chips and salsa.”

For clarity, Cotija was a cheese and a well-established town long before Benjamin and Carmela Alcazar started their Cotija restaurant at the corner of Western Avenue and Howard Street. (Jalisco and Tabasco are two other Mexican states possibly better known to locals for their food, rather than geographic context.) Cotija cheese is firm, salty and made from cow’s milk. Traditional Cotija is produced in limited quantities and only during the rainy season in the state of Michoacan, when the cows are grazing on natural mountain grasses, which account for the cheese’s unique flavor and color.

The town of Cotija itself is located within the Mexican state of Michoacan, which borders Mexico (the state that contains Mexico City) to the east, Guanajuato to the north, Jalisco to the west and Guerrero to the south. It was also the hometown of Benjamin and Carmela Alcazar prior to their move to California. “Benny” moved from Cotija in 1987, settling in Vallejo, where he already had family. A year later, his fiancée Carmela joined him and they would eventually marry in Reno, before moving to Sonoma County to raise their three daughters.

Although the couple had never owned a restaurant, in 1993, with the help of Carmela’s brother, who was also living locally and had a restaurant background, the Alcazars opened Cotija at the old gas station that sits on the north corner of Western Avenue and Howard Street. Carmela happened to pregnant at the time with her third daughter, Jasmine, who has been the driving force behind Cotija’s resurrection.

“The three of us daughters grew up at the restaurant,” Jasmine reminisced. “We washed dishes, worked the cash register and learned to take notes when people placed their orders. And we became friends with a lot of Petaluma families who dined with us regularly.”

The restaurant was an homage to the Alcazars’ hometown, even sporting a mural along one of its walls of the downtown plaza in Cotija.

“It was a labor of love for mom,” said Jasmine. “She was always so happy when she was at the restaurant. She loved seeing everyone’s reactions to the food. Now that she is gone, we honor her by naming the new brand after her and using her face as the logo.”

Even though a Petaluma favorite, due to environmental concerns related to the old gas station site, Cotija eventually relocated to the Outlet Mall in the late 2000s. Unfortunately, the financial downturn in the aftermath of the financial crisis hit hard, and Cotija ceased operations completely in 2012.

It was shortly after this that Mark Ramirez started his search for Benny and his beloved chips and salsa.

“My best guess is I spent about four to five years making occasional posts looking for Benny and his chips and salsa,” Ramirez said. “Every time I posted, so many other people said how much they also loved and missed Cotija’s chips and salsa.”

Ramirez posted his most recent “Where is Benny now?” on Facebook, and as luck would have it, the post caught the attention of a friend of Jasmine’s, who passed along the message. Jasmine was overwhelmed with all the responses she saw.

“Seeing all the positive comments was amazing,” said Jasmine. “So many people were saying so many nice things about my parents’ food. I felt bad that people were missing the food, but then I thought, ‘We can’t do the other dishes, but maybe we can do the chips and salsa.’”

Jasmine, a full-time student, who plans to get her nursing credentials, solicited help from the rest of the family.

“Dad knows the recipe off the top of his head, but he wrote it down for me so we could produce it in large batches,” said Jasmine.

She makes no claim that this is a “traditional” Mexican recipe.

“This has been fine-tuned by our family over the years, based on feedback from Petaluma diners,” she said. One might say this has been ‘tuned’ to the Petaluma palette. “The guac is also dad’s recipe. It’s another of dad’s babies. He has such a nice way of creating flavors.”

Unfortunately, Jasmine’s mother Carmela is no long around to see the fruits of her family’s labor.

“Mom got cancer towards the end of the restaurant run and just passed away a couple of years ago,” said Jasmine. Through tears, she added that it was a family decision to honor their mother, and her passion for feeding Petalumans, by naming the company after her and using her smiling face as the logo.

“It took the whole family’s help, including using our cousin’s restaurant in Napa to help produce it all, especially the chips, which takes a really big fryer,” said Jasmine. “We figured we would try it once a month and found that it was an immediate success. We started with deliveries only, but at 60 deliveries in one day, quickly figured out that it would be more efficient to continue as a pop-up.”

That’s when Jamison’s Roaring Donkey stepped in. The two business families are interconnected, as are so many here in the Petaluma community, so holding pop-ups at the Donkey’s Kentucky Street location was a natural fit.

“The dream would be to get into grocery stores, so long as it is still fun and doesn’t get stressful. But for the time being, we are simply loving the positive support that Petaluma has shown us and hope to keep that going,” Jasmine said.

Carmela’s O.G. Cotija’s next chips, salsa and guacamole pop-up is scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 21, at Jamison’s Roaring Donkey, with an ordering deadline of Aug. 18. Orders can be placed through Carmela’s O.G. Cotija’s Facebook page.

Whether you have had it before or are trying it for the first time, you will be happy to order all three, as we were a few months back. It was our first taste of the Cotija specialty in over a decade and had us nodding in appreciation for Ramirez’s dogged search for this Petaluma original. The salsa has an addictive sweetness, the chips are crisp and salty and the guac is creamy and citrusy.

“One thing led to another and we finally have Cotija’s chips and salsa in our lives again,” said Ramirez.

I am sure that Carmela is looking down with pride in what her family is doing and the happiness it is bringing to Petaluma’s Cotija-loving crowd.