Business has grown into two-story, 40 table eatery
By Jeff Ertz

NORTH WALES – if it weren’t for “Hurricane Jane,” the Tex Mex Connection restaurant might not be celebrating its 20 th year in business this year. “Hurricane Jane,” or Jane Keyes, took on the task of opening a Southwest-style restaurant at 201 E. Walnut St. in 1985 with no prior experience running a food-service business. She was eventually able to expand a 14-table eatery into a 40 table, two floor restaurant.

We call her Hurricane Jane because you’re talking to her and next thing you know she’s gone,” her father, Bill Keyes, said “She comes and she goes like a whirlwind and she made (Tex Mex Connection) what it is today.”

Jane Keyes said something changes within the restaurant every year, most of the time in decorations or menu items – one menu section, changes twice a year – and most recently she installed wireless Internet access for customers to heighten the restaurant’s appeal.

Geared toward accommodating patrons who hold business meetings, customers can bring their laptop computers and log onto the Internet or check their e-mail at Tex Mex while the eat or drink.

Bill Keyes, known around the restaurant as “Mir. Bill,” had brought into a partnership for a corner bar with his nephew before Jane Keyes moved back from a stint in Dallas, Texas, and started Tex Mex in 1985. Tex Mex eventually took over the bar once Jane Keyes incorporated Tex Mex under T.D.’s Wales Junction Inc. to assume the bar’s liquor license.

Tex Mex Connection is the fictitious name under which the business operates.

Jane Keyes said salsa and seven-layer dip recipes she acquired from Mexican friends accompanied some of the first dishes she prepared when the restaurant was open only one night a week.

After shopping for her ingredients at a market up the street, Jane Keyes cooked and served alongside her family and friends, including her mother, Millie Keyes, who had cooked lunch and served shrimp dinners some nights for her nephew years before Jane Keyes started Tex Mex.

Millie Keyes, now known to some patrons and staff as “Miss Millie,” recalled Jane Keyes bursting through the kitchen doors asking for a salad house dressing their first night open.

Not knowing what sort of dressing would be appropriate for a Southwestern restaurant, Millie Keyes said she just threw some ingredients together.

Because of the dressing’s appeal it’s still served today.

“Of course, being older and a lot smarter, I told her it would never work here,” Bill Keyes said, referring to the North Wales area that was once devoid of Mexican food eateries. “In a nutshell, she proved me wrong.”

But Jane Keyes said everyone else expressed similar sentiments of impeding failure.

“I really think part of the reason I was successful is because people told e I couldn’t,” Jane Keyes said.

When people began frequenting the restaurant, it expanded its hours and menu until the small kitchen could no longer handle dinner prep-work and serve lunch at the same time.

So the lunch menu vanished, and while now serving only dinner, Jane decided she needed to expand.

Because the restaurants generally have high failure rates, several banks turned her down for a loan.

After eventually securing a $430,999 Small Business Administration-backed loan in 1992, “Hurricane Jane” commissioned a roof replacement, renovation of the building’s second-floor apartments into dining areas and leveling a building her cousin owned next door for parking.

“Most restaurants come and go,” said Diane C. Di Sepio, economic development specialist for the SBA. “And she’s been very successful.”

After surpassing the hump of the first few years, Jane Keyes said Tex Mex experienced growth every year except the past year, where business was down 1 percent.

To bump business back up, she said she slotted her first commercial, which will air soon.

For their 20 th anniversary, Jane Keyes said they are going to unveil a menu in October that has all the home-made menu selections that have been pulled over the years but customers have favorites.

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