Founded in 1957, in one of the favorite areas of Hollywood legends and the golden age of Mexican cinema, the Beto Condesa restaurant, located on the beach strip of the same name, is dying amid ruins and a strike, which has already been going on for two years. years.
The property is located next to another restaurant that is about to disappear “El Paradise”, owned by Mr. Chuy Rodríguez, who also tells his own story, but the one in question, the touristologist José Cedano Galera, says that the owner was the gastronomic businessman, Humberto Silvano Bello Espinoza, known as Don Beto.
This explains the name of the Beto Condesa restaurant, which was the pioneer in locating itself on the Condesa beach strip in 1957, when the port of Acapulco began to detonate as a beach destination. It is important to note that together with Jesús Rodríguez and Carlos Mendoza they were the precursors of tourism in the Golden Zone of Acapulco.
With the construction of the Miguel Alemán coastal road, which was inaugurated by the then President of Mexico, Miguel Alemán Valdés, on the night of February 28, 1949, which made it possible to connect from the beaches of Caleta and Caletilla to the Farallón del Obispo, in the current section of the Glorieta de la Diana Cazadora in the port, there are also opportunities for businessmen from Buenos Aires.
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Don Humberto Silvano takes the initiative to build his business, taking care at all times to respect the environment of the place and it is done with logs and palapa, although the entire area had to be conditioned, which was made of rocks and dense vegetation, for which there was a need to break the big stones with dynamite and reach the strip of sand, where the waves broke.
But who was Don Beto? Well, his brother Sergio Mendoza said that he was the son of Natividad Espinoza Díaz, a renowned cook who gave her personal stamp to the preparation of house dishes, such as ceviche from Acapulco and fish a la talla, in the Beto Condesa restaurants. , Beto Barra Vieja and Paraíso, is where they get their seasoning and their own style of preparing their stews.
At first there were not so many people, but as they tasted the fried fish or shrimp with garlic mojo sauce, without neglecting the house specialty: pescado a la talla, the name of the Beto Condesa restaurant, it gained popularity and crossed borders. to that extent distinguished clients began to arrive.
Among these are: Tom Jones, James Caan, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Elizabeth Taylor, Sean Connery in his James Bond years, Farrah Fawcett, George Hamilton, Richard Burton, to name a few, who at the same time did not lose the opportunity to enjoy the beaches that were once the hallmark of tourism in Mexico.
But also, there are María Félix, Jorge Negrete and the former presidents Adolfo López Mateos and Miguel Alemán Valdés, in addition to the great Tin-Tán, Verónica Castro, the divo from Juárez, Juan Gabriel, who were regulars at this paradisiacal place, to Despite the fact that at that time it faced strong competition with El Paradise, by Don Chuy Rodríguez.
The establishment enjoyed great fame during the 1970s and 1980s, a period in which it underwent a series of structural changes, even expanding and covering a larger area, to the delight of its diners, who unwittingly witnessed the birth of the most important hotels such as the Condesa del Mar, Las Torres Gemelas, to name a few.
Crescencio Muños Adame, one of the old waiters, remembers with nostalgia, that his boss innovated the concept, by hiring two musical groups, so the party was continuous and he made an important clarification, that before they were built the hotels and nightclubs, first came the restaurants and much later the nightlife.
But not everything is forever, in the mid-90s the decline began, as there was no innovation or investment, the furniture deteriorated, the preparation of the main dishes, they stopped having that flavor that distinguished them, but the most radical change it suffered was its disappearance from the late-night youth entertainment market.
In the end, Don Beto, sick and left his nephew Héctor Rodríguez Escalona, the restaurant, but he was never able to recover its splendor, nor the initiative to change its name to: Bar Beto Safari and later to give rise to the Mangos- establishment again. bar, he achieved some improvement and his turn changed him again, so much so that he had to return to his origins and remained as Beto Condesa.
By then, the 26 employees began to denounce the lack of payment of their fortnightly payments, they called the new owner Rodríguez Escalona to dialogue, but he never agreed to reach an agreement and the strike broke out two years ago.
Currently, the general secretary of hotel and gastronomy workers of the Mexican Confederation of Workers (CTM), Raúl Ramírez Gallardo, is demanding the payment of 9 million pesos as compensation, but there is no provision from the employer.
While the Beto Condesa restaurant is turned into ruins, the old furniture is covered in dust and the iron structures are being eaten away by corrosion and salinity, slowly dying, amid the memory of the bustle of this mythical place that has never To return to.
