- The Muñoz family came to Bakersfield in 1913 from Aguascalientes. Eventually they started breaking into the restaurant business, and now those restaurants can be found throughout Bakersfield.
- Video shows Casa Muñoz, the former Sinaloa Mexican Restaurant, and El Sombrero, as well as various photos from the Munoz clan.
Casa Muñoz, the former Sinaloa Mexican Restaurant, and El Sombrero are all popular Mexican restaurants that Bakersfield natives know and love. However, did you know that each of those restaurants are connected thanks to a family with Bakersfield roots going back over 100 years.
“The roots are here, where else can I go,” said Joe Munoz. “Have you ever read the grapes of wrath? Well that was us.”
Muñoz is no stranger to hard work. The son of a field worker, his parents settled in Bakersfield from Aguascalientes in 1913.
“My father worked in the fields. He was a farm laborer,” he said. “My mother made everything by hand, she worked her self to death, feeding 13 kids and her mother.”
That structure translating into a strong work ethic as Muñoz entered the family business washing dishes at Sinaloa at just 13 years old.
“My brother, his father in law owned it at first. My brother was working in the ice plant,” he said. “It was 1947 or 48 that my brother Mike his father in law had renamed Sinaloa. Why he named it that I don’t know because he was from Aguascaliente, not the state of Sinaloa.”
Muñoz continued working with his brother at Sinaloa for 30 years, recalling memories of drag racing and the Los Toros Motorcycle Club. During that time he was also drafted into the army during World War II and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
“I was in the third armored devision in Germany for 3 years,” he said.
When he returned, the Muñoz family had now branched out into other restaurants like El Sombrero, where Joe worked for another 10 years before he decided to open Casa Muñoz in 1990. He brought with him his name and the same work ethic his father instilled in him.
“The first 12 or 13 years I didn’t have a day off, I didn’t have a vacation,” he said.
Eventually his wife showed him the light, and even though he never liked to take a break, he always kept his family close. In fact the restaurant has seen generation after generation of children taking part in the family business.
When they’re not there, all Joe has to do is look up at the wall of portraits lining the entrance to see those he loves smiling back at him.
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