Margaret L. Williams 1990

North Wales native turns the sizzle of Southwestern food into thriving business

“When is the last time you had a craving for a Quesa Del Mar?  How about a Chimichanga?  Or Empanadas?  What about Sopaipillas?  If you think you have suddenly entered the twilight zone of menu items, there is no need to be concerned.  All these delicious and goodies are regular fare at the Tex Mex Connection, upstairs from the Wales Junction Tavern at Second and Walnut streets in North Wales.

“What?” you say, “Tex-Mex food in North Wales?  That sounds a bit unusual, if not downright strange!”

That is exactly the reaction restaurant owner and manager Jane Keyes got when she decided to open the Tex Mex Connection.  She had been living outside Dallas, Texas for some time, and mobbed back into the area, soon missing the ethnic dishes she had grown so fond of in the Southwest.  There is such a big difference with freshly prepared foods; I wasn’t happy with what was available.”

Encouragement was not what Keyes received when she decided that her home town was the perfect place to open.  “My dad and his cousin had bought the Wales Junction Tavern, and there was a small dining room that was a part of it.  I had gone back to Texas to visit friends, had seen a small place, and was certain I could do something similar.” 

Bill Keyes, Jane’s father admits to a bit of skepticism regarding the restaurant’s chances of success.  “She thought it would be a great idea,” he recalls, “but I told her ‘No way. It will never work here.’  It did start slowly, but then the idea caught on, business picked up, and we had to turn away as many people as could seat in our small dining room.” 

“What kept me going,” Keyes says, “is a stubborn streak.  I knew I could make a success of this.  I had never run a restaurant. So I learned by doing.  My background was in real estate, and I had studied business administration in night school. But I never expected to get into anything like this.”

“When we first opened, I cooked all day and worked all night.  I read a lot of trade journals, took suggestions from friends.  Basically, I think I went on instinct and emotion.”

“The recipes we use here are all as authentic as we can make them.  Everything is made from scratch, even our chips, which are made fresh daily.  Some of the recipes came from my friends in the Southwest, while others came from my head!  I would find recipes that would serve from six to eight people, and figure out ways to expand them.”

“Sometimes,” Keyes recounts, “the recipes were put together by using whatever spices we had on hand, and just working with them until we got what we liked.  We were doing a very good business. But with the tiny kitchen we had downstairs. We were very limited.”

Meanwhile, the second floor of the Wales Junction Tavern stood empty.  It had been apartments. But as Bill Keyes relates, “Who wants to rent an apartment right upstairs from a tavern?”

“The whole building needed a face lift,” states Jane, “so that was the perfect excuse to move everything upstairs and renovate the entire building.  The whole staff helped out. And we opened in the fall with the ability to seat 100 guests.”

Keyes’ statement that the whole staff helped with the renovations is an understatement.  One of her bartenders, Holly Weiser Savidge, is an accomplished stencil artist. And her work adds a delightful touch to the archway between dining rooms, as well as the other hall spaces in the upstairs space.  The tablecloths were all cut by the waitresses and other staff, and the chair seats were all hand covered by staff (and Keyes’ two children), working away while others decorated the walls.

The finished décor is charming and low key, with just the right touch of desert plant life and Southwestern Indian artwork.  “I traveled to Mexico and bought the paintings and artifacts myself,” related Keyes.  “I wanted everything to be a certain way, and I knew I could do it the way I had envisioned it.

“I am very fortunate to have the staff here that I do; I can really count on them and we all work well together.  They truly have great comments and suggestions and we have regular meetings to keep communication open.  Everybody has an emotional investment in our success here.”

Waitresses Jill Childs has been a staff member at Tex Mex Connection for the past three years, and has thoroughly enjoyed the transformation into the “upstairs” restaurant.  “Jane is one of those people with really high energy,” she relates.  “She carries the momentum of the restaurant.   She did all of the design work for the new dining room. Plus she had been the waitress, the cook, the dishwasher.”

“It’s her energy that got the place going, and it is her energy that keeps it going as it expands,  We are all having a wonderful time going along with her.”

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