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Glencoe’s new restaurant on the block is Tres Ways Restaurante, which celebrated its induction into the Calaveras County Chamber of Commerce on April 22.
Owner Sal (Salvador) Hernandez, 35, explained that he and his wife, Allyssa Sanchez, who own several properties in Glencoe and the surrounding area, became interested when they saw the location was sitting vacant.
Hernandez was born in Baja California, Mexico, and immigrated along with his family to San Jose, Calif. He expressed how he wanted to bring the kind of food that grew up with to Calaveras County.
“I read a couple of books and watched a couple of things. One of the biggest things was Gordon Ramsay, he always basically says, ‘Simplify your menu.’ So all the ingredients that you see on the OG Wrap have the same ingredients as a taco and other dishes. Simplicity is always the best thing,” said Hernandez.
Courtesy Photo/Calaveras County Chamber of Commerce
He added, “I always wanted to have a restaurant. That's always been an endgame goal.”
The couple eventually made an offer on the historic building, which the property owner accepted.
Hernandez explained that they had to do many renovations to the building upon purchase. “We repainted, we did the floors, then we did some plumbing work, and electrical work.”
They began by selling food at pop-up events to market the restaurant.
Courtesy Photo/Tres Ways Restaurante
“The whole thing is a big process going from a building that hasn't been a restaurant for more than 20 years. So, it all has to go basically from the beginning of a brand-new restaurant. The cool thing is that the town hall in Railroad Flat has a commercial kitchen. Everybody was like, ‘When are you gonna open the restaurant?’ So then we just started doing a pop-up event at the town hall. We were doing that Thursdays and Fridays with just tacos,” Hernandez said.
Of the challenges Hernadez expects from this business, he said, “The cool thing is we have Railroad Flat, population 500, West Point, population I think like 700, and then here [Glencoe] population 189. They call this a three-way for a reason because it's a three-way [intersection] to go to Railroad, West Point or Mokelumne Hill. So you kind of get a lot of locals. The only thing that I have to always keep in mind is the last week of the month is always a little harder because a lot of people are on fixed incomes. So we try to close Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday on the last week of the month.”
Courtesy Photo/Tres Ways Restaurante
Hernandez also gave some history of the building itself, explaining that the building was constructed around 1898 and has since been expanded. The building served as a Texaco gas station before going on to become multiple eateries including a Cajun restaurant and a steakhouse.
The restaurant's bar is also a longtime part of the building that Hernandez kept to keep the building “original.” When it came to the decorations, he stated, “I painted all the walls white because I like to keep it crisp and clean. A lot of people say, ‘Sal your restaurant isn’t very Mexican for being a Mexican restaurant.’”
Hernandez then pointed to a sombrero hanging on the wall, “But I have a Mexican hat, I'm Mexican. We'll play a little bit of Mexican music once in a while. But I don't know [if] our décor is different. When you go to Mexico, not all Mexican restaurants look like what they're like here.”
Tres Ways is located at 15757 Highway 26, Glencoe, CA 95232. For more information, visit www.treswaysrestaurante.com.
Danny is a writer and a Calaveras County native. He studied creative writing and marketing at San Francisco State University and has previously done work as an automotive journalist. He is happy to be back and writing about the local community.
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