It’s a rare rainy morning in Phoenix, and the passing cars hiss as they speed by.
El Horseshoe Restaurant is just coming alive at 7 a.m., but the parking lot is already lined with pickup trucks. Not the lifted $80k status symbols that mostly haul Ikea furniture. These are half the size, dented and dinged, and one of them has an electric orange water cooler strapped to the back.
The shoe fits. This usually dusty stretch of Buckeye Road just southwest of downtown Phoenix is better known for light industry than for dining. Next door, a fenced lot advertises used cars with crude hand-painted signs, and El Horseshoe’s tiny shoebox frame is dwarfed by a mountain of shipping containers and wooden pallets across the street. An elaborate web of power lines crisscrosses a dull gray sky above, and it’s tough to make out the building’s colorful murals in the dim light.
Inside the restaurant, things are more hospitable.
The scent of toasted chiles and fresh masa greets you at the door, wafting out from the kitchen where Jackelina Avitia tends the stove. She’s the middle generation of this family operation, taking up the reins from her mother, Rosa, and running the restaurant alongside her son, Angel.
It’s a spartan dining room, boxy and plain and cooled by four whizzing fans, each with three bulbs, only one of them lit. The ceiling is low, and I’m a little concerned that customers taller than 6 feet, 2 inches are a hiccup away from head trauma.
Half the seats are already filled with folks hungrily tucking into breakfast. Grace Uribe, a fixture at the front counter, looks my way and offers a pleasant, wordless “anywhere you like” shrug, so I shoehorn my dining critic’s physique into a narrow booth and peruse the menu. I don’t really need to. I’ve been here countless times before and tried just about everything, but you never know what might strike your fancy when you open those pages.
Today, it’s chilaquiles. A lot of times it’s chilaquiles.
I settle in and get comfy. The kitchen at El Horseshoe isn’t speedy, and that’s a good thing. Jackelina prepares her chilaquiles the same way her mother Rosa does, not with pre-fried chips but with stale tortillas, torn by hand and tossed in a skillet of sizzling oil until they’re blistered and crispy. She pours in some fresh salsa — red or green, you pick — and lets that sputter and reduce for a couple of minutes before adding a handful of shredded mozzarella. She plates the chilaquiles with a dusting of cotija cheese and an egg, if you like. Over easy is my jam. I love a bit of luscious yellow yolk over that bright, fresh salsa.
The ceiling fans sway as a semitruck rumbles by and momentarily blots out the sound of Spanish-language news on the TV. A table of fellows coming off their shift chuckle over internet videos, while the workers just starting their day are all business — get in, fuel up, get out.
I contemplate chugging a bottle of hot sauce to tide me over, but my plate is delivered in the nick of time. The sky is starting to clear and a bit of faint sunshine peeks in through the Eastern windows, right on time for the chilaquiles’ closeup. I threw caution to the wind and went Christmas-style today — a little red, a little green — and the salsa's intense colors glow in the slowly brightening light.
The chilaquiles at El Horseshoe are the opposite of the kitchen sink approach. These aren’t soppy nachos. They’re clean and sparse, and they hit that perfect consistency — soft and slurpy in spots, lightly crisped in others, saturated with vibrant salsa and bit of melted cheesy pull. They’re the epitome of minimal perfection, and they maintain absolute focus on the essential flavors and textures of the dish.
El Horseshoe is like that.
If I had to pigeonhole this restaurant, I might call it the Sonoran equivalent of the great American diner. Not one of those kitschy, commercial retro burger joints or the smoky haunts of a Tom Waits song that sling hash and Velveeta for the nighthawks. I’m talking about the kind of diner that’s cozy and comfortable — a folksy joint that prepares simple, honest food from scratch. Except here, instead of meatloaf and roast turkey, the blue-plate specials are chilaquiles and chiles rellenos.
Speaking of which, you should get the chiles rellenos.
This isn’t a dish with sex appeal. Not until you slice one of the chiles open, anyway, and a little puddle of cheese slowly oozes out. It’s just a pair of roasted poblanos, battered and fried and doused in a light tomato sauce with a lick of spice. No perky garnish, no complex filling, no mix of multiple sauces. The lack of complication is their strength. They taste like chiles, tomatoes and cheese, but the depth of that flavor speaks to the care that goes into their preparation.
If you’re looking for eggs, Angel will steer you toward the huevos con chorizo. He’s proud of the chorizo, and he should be. It’s a blend the Avitias prepare in-house, and it’s perfect with scrambled eggs. It has the requisite spice and hit of vinegar, but it’s less nakedly aggressive than commercial chorizo. It’s more mellow, more confident, distinctive but nicely balanced. It’s a team player, happy to work with the other ingredients on the plate rather than obliterating them.
One of the menu’s most unusual house-made superstars, however, is the machaca. But before you go telling me you know machaca, consider the possibility that you don’t know this machaca. I’ve always thought the AZ-Mex standard plays a little like reconstituted pot roast, too often over-reduced with an unpleasant pucker. This emphatically is not that dish.
Jackelina’s father, Angel Senior, makes the machaca himself, cutting, seasoning and drying the beef in thin sheets in the old Sonoran tradition. But unlike most restaurants around Phoenix that purchase and rehydrate their machaca, El Horseshoe serves Angel Senior's dry — bordering on beef jerky dry.
Before it’s cooked, Jackelina shreds the machaca so finely that its fibers take on a light, almost feathery texture. Then, in defiance of local custom, she resists adding liquid to keep it that way. It’s great with eggs, but I think it shines when served with little cubes of pan-fried potatoes, the better to preserve that brilliant texture.
Who else around town produces their own machaca? This little shoebox of a restaurant is teeming with surprises. Not least of which is that it’s been around for nearly three decades.
Skipping fashion in favor of tradition
Rosa and Angel Senior were born in Sinaloa and Durango, respectively, but they both moved to Sonora at very young ages. There, they met and married before immigrating to California and eventually landing in Arizona. The couple first opened a bar next door, then took over the current building when the previous tenant — another restaurant — folded in 1996. The Avitia family has run El Horseshoe ever since, drawing a low-key crowd of regulars for 28 years. They’ve barely changed a thing.
When I first visited more than a decade ago, I thought the soups, while solid, were the weak link at El Horseshoe. Not anymore.
The Avitias have, to their credit, resisted quesabirria’s tyranny and chosen instead to continue making the same, simple birria de chivo as always. It doesn’t boast the former’s more Instagrammable qualities — part of the reason Phoenix’s trendy food media overlook El Horseshoe, I fear — but look, I’ll beg if I have to.
Dear quesabirria acolytes, please spend a little time with this soup. Don’t rush things. Get to know it a bit. Snuggle up to a bowl with a fat stack of tortillas. Pressed and griddled to order, they’re thick finger-scalders with a sweet fragrance that beg to be dunked into the birria’s ruddy broth, exploding with chiles and garlic and brimming with a pile of tender, bone-in goat meat. This dish isn’t a greasy one-night love affair that leaves you bloated and moaning in the gutter. This is a partner for life that you grow with over time.
Or, if goat inspires commitment issues, give the caldo de res a spin. A good broth is the underappreciated mark of a good cook, and Jackelina’s is dynamite. It’s a lustrous, gelatin-rich soup of pure beefy intensity with a gentle herbal lift. It cradles slabs of tender meat, a chunk of sweet corn and giant carrots and potatoes that melt to the touch. Promise to bring me a bowl next time I catch a head cold.
If you want something a little sultry, go for the lengua en mole.
Lordy-loo, the lengua. El Horseshoe offers cow tongue prepared a number of ways, but the lengua en mole remains my favorite. It’s one of the precious few items that isn’t made completely from scratch, and yet it shines. The Avitias start with a paste and doctor their mole from there, working toward an atypically sweet and smooth sauce that enrobes some of the silkiest, most tender lengua I have ever tasted. For anyone who appreciates mole but hasn’t yet come around to the wonders of tongue, this will be a gateway dish from which there’s no turning back.
When Phoenicians discuss their favorite chile verde and chile rojo, I find myself a little perturbed that El Horseshoe's isn’t in the conversation more often. It is cubed pork shoulder, just a little slick and fatty, gently stewed down to its tender essence. The green bears the brighter notes of tomatillo and herbs, while the red plumbs the smokier depths of toasted dried chiles. But both are beautifully rounded and rich, and they exhibit more of a tingling, warm embrace than a performative punch.
Is that why El Horseshoe isn’t more popular than it is? Too simple? Too subtle? Too humble for today’s dining scene?
To be fair, the necklace of freeways that adorns downtown Phoenix surrounds an awful lot of beloved Mexican restaurants — spots that locals discuss with wide eyes in hushed and reverent tones. And perhaps it’s human nature to stick with the one you love rather than trying something new. But every time I stop by El Horseshoe, I find myself more and more frustrated that a place so good that's been here so long isn’t part of the conversation more often.
With that thought, I’ve lingered long enough. Uribe totals up the tab — cash or Zelle only — and thanks me for coming. I dodge the ceiling fans on my way out the door. The emerging sun blinds me as step into the street, and I’m nearly pulverized by a truck roaring by. I suppose there are worse ways to go than getting pancaked by a Peterbilt with a blissfully full stomach on a bright Phoenix morning after the rain. But I live to return another day.
Freshly bathed, the building’s colorful mural now shines like neon. It’s a Sonoran Desert landscape of cactuses and agaves beneath mountainous peaks and a starry sky. Maybe that’s the Avitias’ secret to quietly going about their business. Camouflage.
El Horseshoe Restaurant
2140 W. Buckeye Road
602-251-3135
instagram.com/el_horseshoe
7 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; 7 a.m.-2 p.m Sunday.
Tacos $3.50; Tortas $9; Plates and Soups $12-$15.
Cash or Zelle only.
El Horseshoe Restaurant is just coming alive at 7 a.m., but the parking lot is already lined with pickup trucks. Not the lifted $80k status symbols that mostly haul Ikea furniture. These are half the size, dented and dinged, and one of them has an electric orange water cooler strapped to the back.
The shoe fits. This usually dusty stretch of Buckeye Road just southwest of downtown Phoenix is better known for light industry than for dining. Next door, a fenced lot advertises used cars with crude hand-painted signs, and El Horseshoe’s tiny shoebox frame is dwarfed by a mountain of shipping containers and wooden pallets across the street. An elaborate web of power lines crisscrosses a dull gray sky above, and it’s tough to make out the building’s colorful murals in the dim light.
El Horseshoe is a tiny shoebox of a Sonoran diner in a light industrial neighborhood near downtown Phoenix.
Dominic Armato
The scent of toasted chiles and fresh masa greets you at the door, wafting out from the kitchen where Jackelina Avitia tends the stove. She’s the middle generation of this family operation, taking up the reins from her mother, Rosa, and running the restaurant alongside her son, Angel.
It’s a spartan dining room, boxy and plain and cooled by four whizzing fans, each with three bulbs, only one of them lit. The ceiling is low, and I’m a little concerned that customers taller than 6 feet, 2 inches are a hiccup away from head trauma.
Half the seats are already filled with folks hungrily tucking into breakfast. Grace Uribe, a fixture at the front counter, looks my way and offers a pleasant, wordless “anywhere you like” shrug, so I shoehorn my dining critic’s physique into a narrow booth and peruse the menu. I don’t really need to. I’ve been here countless times before and tried just about everything, but you never know what might strike your fancy when you open those pages.
Today, it’s chilaquiles. A lot of times it’s chilaquiles.
I settle in and get comfy. The kitchen at El Horseshoe isn’t speedy, and that’s a good thing. Jackelina prepares her chilaquiles the same way her mother Rosa does, not with pre-fried chips but with stale tortillas, torn by hand and tossed in a skillet of sizzling oil until they’re blistered and crispy. She pours in some fresh salsa — red or green, you pick — and lets that sputter and reduce for a couple of minutes before adding a handful of shredded mozzarella. She plates the chilaquiles with a dusting of cotija cheese and an egg, if you like. Over easy is my jam. I love a bit of luscious yellow yolk over that bright, fresh salsa.
The ceiling fans sway as a semitruck rumbles by and momentarily blots out the sound of Spanish-language news on the TV. A table of fellows coming off their shift chuckle over internet videos, while the workers just starting their day are all business — get in, fuel up, get out.
I contemplate chugging a bottle of hot sauce to tide me over, but my plate is delivered in the nick of time. The sky is starting to clear and a bit of faint sunshine peeks in through the Eastern windows, right on time for the chilaquiles’ closeup. I threw caution to the wind and went Christmas-style today — a little red, a little green — and the salsa's intense colors glow in the slowly brightening light.
The chilaquiles at El Horseshoe are the opposite of the kitchen sink approach. These aren’t soppy nachos. They’re clean and sparse, and they hit that perfect consistency — soft and slurpy in spots, lightly crisped in others, saturated with vibrant salsa and bit of melted cheesy pull. They’re the epitome of minimal perfection, and they maintain absolute focus on the essential flavors and textures of the dish.
El Horseshoe is like that.
If I had to pigeonhole this restaurant, I might call it the Sonoran equivalent of the great American diner. Not one of those kitschy, commercial retro burger joints or the smoky haunts of a Tom Waits song that sling hash and Velveeta for the nighthawks. I’m talking about the kind of diner that’s cozy and comfortable — a folksy joint that prepares simple, honest food from scratch. Except here, instead of meatloaf and roast turkey, the blue-plate specials are chilaquiles and chiles rellenos.
Speaking of which, you should get the chiles rellenos.
This isn’t a dish with sex appeal. Not until you slice one of the chiles open, anyway, and a little puddle of cheese slowly oozes out. It’s just a pair of roasted poblanos, battered and fried and doused in a light tomato sauce with a lick of spice. No perky garnish, no complex filling, no mix of multiple sauces. The lack of complication is their strength. They taste like chiles, tomatoes and cheese, but the depth of that flavor speaks to the care that goes into their preparation.
If you’re looking for eggs, Angel will steer you toward the huevos con chorizo. He’s proud of the chorizo, and he should be. It’s a blend the Avitias prepare in-house, and it’s perfect with scrambled eggs. It has the requisite spice and hit of vinegar, but it’s less nakedly aggressive than commercial chorizo. It’s more mellow, more confident, distinctive but nicely balanced. It’s a team player, happy to work with the other ingredients on the plate rather than obliterating them.
El Horseshoe's machaca is served completely dry and finely shredded to achieve a feathery texture.
Dominic Armato
Jackelina’s father, Angel Senior, makes the machaca himself, cutting, seasoning and drying the beef in thin sheets in the old Sonoran tradition. But unlike most restaurants around Phoenix that purchase and rehydrate their machaca, El Horseshoe serves Angel Senior's dry — bordering on beef jerky dry.
Before it’s cooked, Jackelina shreds the machaca so finely that its fibers take on a light, almost feathery texture. Then, in defiance of local custom, she resists adding liquid to keep it that way. It’s great with eggs, but I think it shines when served with little cubes of pan-fried potatoes, the better to preserve that brilliant texture.
Who else around town produces their own machaca? This little shoebox of a restaurant is teeming with surprises. Not least of which is that it’s been around for nearly three decades.
Skipping fashion in favor of tradition
Rosa and Angel Senior were born in Sinaloa and Durango, respectively, but they both moved to Sonora at very young ages. There, they met and married before immigrating to California and eventually landing in Arizona. The couple first opened a bar next door, then took over the current building when the previous tenant — another restaurant — folded in 1996. The Avitia family has run El Horseshoe ever since, drawing a low-key crowd of regulars for 28 years. They’ve barely changed a thing. When I first visited more than a decade ago, I thought the soups, while solid, were the weak link at El Horseshoe. Not anymore.
The Avitias have, to their credit, resisted quesabirria’s tyranny and chosen instead to continue making the same, simple birria de chivo as always. It doesn’t boast the former’s more Instagrammable qualities — part of the reason Phoenix’s trendy food media overlook El Horseshoe, I fear — but look, I’ll beg if I have to.
Dear quesabirria acolytes, please spend a little time with this soup. Don’t rush things. Get to know it a bit. Snuggle up to a bowl with a fat stack of tortillas. Pressed and griddled to order, they’re thick finger-scalders with a sweet fragrance that beg to be dunked into the birria’s ruddy broth, exploding with chiles and garlic and brimming with a pile of tender, bone-in goat meat. This dish isn’t a greasy one-night love affair that leaves you bloated and moaning in the gutter. This is a partner for life that you grow with over time.
Or, if goat inspires commitment issues, give the caldo de res a spin. A good broth is the underappreciated mark of a good cook, and Jackelina’s is dynamite. It’s a lustrous, gelatin-rich soup of pure beefy intensity with a gentle herbal lift. It cradles slabs of tender meat, a chunk of sweet corn and giant carrots and potatoes that melt to the touch. Promise to bring me a bowl next time I catch a head cold.
El Horseshoe's lengua en mole is made with some of the most tender, silky beef tongue you'll encounter.
Dominic Armato
Lordy-loo, the lengua. El Horseshoe offers cow tongue prepared a number of ways, but the lengua en mole remains my favorite. It’s one of the precious few items that isn’t made completely from scratch, and yet it shines. The Avitias start with a paste and doctor their mole from there, working toward an atypically sweet and smooth sauce that enrobes some of the silkiest, most tender lengua I have ever tasted. For anyone who appreciates mole but hasn’t yet come around to the wonders of tongue, this will be a gateway dish from which there’s no turning back.
When Phoenicians discuss their favorite chile verde and chile rojo, I find myself a little perturbed that El Horseshoe's isn’t in the conversation more often. It is cubed pork shoulder, just a little slick and fatty, gently stewed down to its tender essence. The green bears the brighter notes of tomatillo and herbs, while the red plumbs the smokier depths of toasted dried chiles. But both are beautifully rounded and rich, and they exhibit more of a tingling, warm embrace than a performative punch.
Is that why El Horseshoe isn’t more popular than it is? Too simple? Too subtle? Too humble for today’s dining scene?
To be fair, the necklace of freeways that adorns downtown Phoenix surrounds an awful lot of beloved Mexican restaurants — spots that locals discuss with wide eyes in hushed and reverent tones. And perhaps it’s human nature to stick with the one you love rather than trying something new. But every time I stop by El Horseshoe, I find myself more and more frustrated that a place so good that's been here so long isn’t part of the conversation more often.
Colorful murals adorn the walls of El Horseshoe Restaurant, just southwest of downtown Phoenix.
Dominic Armato
Freshly bathed, the building’s colorful mural now shines like neon. It’s a Sonoran Desert landscape of cactuses and agaves beneath mountainous peaks and a starry sky. Maybe that’s the Avitias’ secret to quietly going about their business. Camouflage.
Whatever the reason, there's too much to love at El Horseshoe and too few people who have discovered its charms.
I think it’s time we changed that.El Horseshoe Restaurant
2140 W. Buckeye Road602-251-3135
instagram.com/el_horseshoe
7 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; 7 a.m.-2 p.m Sunday.
Tacos $3.50; Tortas $9; Plates and Soups $12-$15.
Cash or Zelle only.
