‘Nothing like you have in the area’
DANBURY — Diana Rivera and her husband love her mother-in-law’s traditional Mexican dishes — so much that she opened a restaurant inspired by them
Rivera opened Los Rivera Cafe at 1 Ives St. in December. Her mother-in-law, Maricruz Rivera, prepares the food, while a chef cooks it.
“We combine his skills in the kitchen with the flavor she puts in the food,” Diana Rivera said.
The restaurant offers meals that are unique to Danbury, she said. Diners won’t get “Tex-Mex” style food, but “Mexican-Mexican” meals, she said.
“They can expect really tasty food here, traditional Mexican food, nothing like you have in the area,” Rivera said.
The main menu includes various types of tacos, tostadas, nachos, pork and quesadillas, as well as bistec azteca and other entrees. The brunch menu includes omelets and huevos rancheros, which is two fried eggs over a corn tortilla topped with a choice of sauces. There’s a kids’ menu and a cocktails menu with various margaritas and other drinks.
Rivera is Ecuadorian, but her husband’s family is from Oaxaca, Mexico. Her husband was born in California, while her mother-in-law lived in Mexico until she was 18.
The restaurant’s decor is from Mexico, too. She has lamps from Mexico and handmade paintings of famous people from Mexico.
Rivera has worked in the restaurant industry in New York City throughout her career, either as a waitress, in the back or in management. But this is her first time owning a restaurant. She studied nursing in college, but decided to stay home after her son, now 6, was born.
Her mother-in-law has cooked for friends and family for years, but this is her first foray into the professional food world, taking training courses for cooking for before the restaurant opened.
Maricruz Rivera said she likes to make people happy with food.
“When my kids go to my house to visit and they ask for food, I do whatever they want to eat, everything from scratch,” she said in a message translated from Spanish to English by her daughter-in-law. “I think that’s how I show them my love, even (though) they are all grown up.”
She said she feels the same way about the restaurant.
“In every quesadilla, in every taco or any food that I prepare for a customer, I want them to leave happy,” Maricruz Rivera said.
Diana Rivera said her husband came up with the idea for the restaurant as a way to provide jobs for the family and highlight his mother’s cooking.
“She puts love into everything that she cooks,” she said.
Diana Rivera and her family moved to Danbury from Queens, N.Y. three years ago so her husband could open American Auto Collision, an auto body shop on Shelter Rock Road.
She said she had to adjust to living in quieter Danbury.
“When I came to town to Danbury, it was missing something for me here,” she said.
With the restaurant, she said wants to “bring a piece of New York” to Danbury. The food and bright colors are meant to make the establishment a place where “when they come in, they can feel happy,” she said.
It took more than two years to open the business because of the work, such as electrical and plumbing, needed on the building, she said. She rents from the same landlord who owns her husband’s auto body shop.
The restaurant is by the Danbury Green, which was upgraded as part of the newly completed first phase of the city’s streetscape project. Diana Rivera said the project came at a great time for her restaurant.
“I think we’re going to have really good business here,” she said.
The restaurant opened about three weeks ago.
“It was hard,” Diana Rivera said. “It’s still hard because it is so hard to find people to work, waiters, bartenders.”
She has two waiters, one who works in the morning and one in the afternoon. She helps both of them. There are five kitchen staff, including her mother-in-law and the chef.
Although Diana Rivera is Ecuadorian, the restaurant plans to stick to Mexican food.
“It’s hard already with one menu,” she said.
She said they’ve gotten compliments from the food from customers, including from a recent party of 100 people.
“They were really happy about the food,” Diana Rivera said.
