The ghost of Frida Kahlo has commandeered the fireplace at Flying Pig Pub and the veggie burritos are better than before.
One of downtown San Jose’s favorite mom ’n’ pop taquerias, Angelou’s, has now opened in a new location at 78 S. First St. Many locals used to frequent the old location, on North Second Street, which collapsed due to the usual real estate greed and political indifference. It was a terrible location anyway. Of all the despair-soaked splotches of downtown concrete, that particular location, Second Street just north of Santa Clara, was among the most un-user-friendly, for sure.
Now everything is better at Angelou’s. In fact, the term “taqueria” doesn’t even do the place justice. There is a bar. And booths. And a Frida Kahlo painting right above where the fireplace used to be 20 years ago when this same space was the Flying Pig Pub. The fireplace was already filled in and long gone before Angelou’s moved in, but the rest of the brickwork remains. As a nod to the fireplace, intentional or not, there’s even a digital fireplace, on a flat screen above the seats, opposite Frida. You get a feeling somebody actually cares about the secret history of buildings.
Even the food at Angelou’s seems better now. They used to make a veggie burrito that wasn’t anything to write home about. Now it comes with grilled zucchini, squash and/or mushrooms. This makes a world of difference. In the old place, I used to reject the standard green or orange sauce options and ask for the real stuff, the Mexican hot sauces. They’d either give me a personal-sized cup of the good stuff, or one of the servers would go underneath the counter by the soda machine and pull out a few bottles, brands like Cholula or El Yucateco. They don’t do this anymore, but I’m fine with it.
What Came Before
Now, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the neighborhood ghosts. Sitting at the new 78 S. First St. incarnation of Angelou’s with my veggie burrito, I pulled out my phone and looked up the story I wrote 20 years ago, when Flying Pig closed. Same location.
In that 2004 story, I ranted about the city’s predilection for throwing horrific amounts of money at chain restaurants like P. F. Chang’s or McCormick & Schmick’s, just to make the neighborhood safer for suburban nuclear families. Even 20 years ago, I was complaining about the struggles of indie businesses around here.
Flying Pig was a textbook jock bar, popular at the time, often filling up with drunken chest-beating dudes who didn’t have an I.Q. between them all. The restroom was in the back hallway, where people trashed the floors, left drinks everywhere and urinated in corners.
In the back hallway, one could leave Flying Pig, go straight into the parking lot and hang an immediate right into the back patio of Gordon Biersch. The employees of both places often went back and forth. It felt really stealth.
The Real San Jose
As I devoured the burrito, it didn’t take long for more neighborhood ghosts to emerge. Down the block, La Taqueria, for example, was owned by Miguel Jara, the same owner of the same place in San Francisco. To this day, a thousand folks argue all over Instagram about the best taqueria in downtown San Jose, but they’re all wrong. La Taqueria was the greatest.
Also no longer with us is Don Pedro’s just around the corner on Post Street, where even the pawn shops are long gone. If the pawn shops have left downtown, then you really know things are changing. At Don Pedro’s, the old Spanish-speaking drunks would howl at full volume along with every Vicente Fernández tune that came over the system. It was fantastic. This is the real San Jose, by the way, not the jock bars.
Just to the left of Don Pedro’s was the Guadalajara Market. The other one was on Alum Rock near King. But this one, on Post Street, was the favorite of many local businesses. There were tortillas. Canned goods. Shirts. And much more.
In these half-empty apocalyptic times, we should applaud resilient businesses like Angelou’s that carry on in the face of adversity. Frida would be proud.
Gary Singh’s column Silicon Alleys appears weekly in Metro Silicon Valley. Find preview columns online.
