LONGMONT — Antonio and Sarah Matus' dream of opening a second restaurant had come close before, but at the last minute something had always gone wrong.
That's how Antonio's, the couple's new restaurant, landed in Longmont.
"We didn't even know where Longmont was, you know?" Antonio Matus said Thursday, the day of the restaurant's opening.
The original Antonio's opened in Taos, N.M., 12 years ago.
"I've been trying to open a restaurant in a city outside of Taos because Taos is very seasonal," Antonio said.
He started shopping around for a second location three or four years ago. He came close in Austin, Texas, and after that in Houston, but both times the deals fell apart. He had many customers at his Taos restaurant who were from Denver or Boulder and urged him to consider Colorado. He did, but last year a spot at the Park Meadows Mall last year also fell through.
He found the vacant 246 Main in Longmont, the former home of Terroir, on a commercial real estate listings website.
A quick trip to see the space last November, some lease negotiations over the phone, and by January they had signed a lease. Sarah Matus started making plans to decorate the place.
Antonio Matus is a native of Xalapa, Veracruz, which is where he got his degree in hotel and restaurant management. He worked at various restaurants around Mexico and moved to Taos in 1994.
As a prep cook, he met Sarah, a native of New Mexico who also worked in restaurants in Taos.
"We got married in 1996 and opened (Antonio's) in 2001," Sarah Matus said.
Antonio's is a blend of traditional New Mexican fare and authentic Mexican dishes, the couple explained.
"We have very traditional plates from the different areas, from the different regions, in Mexico," Antonio Martus said.
That's all Antonio's served when it first opened, he said, which was fine for tourist business but the natives in and around Taos preferred more traditional New Mexican fare.
So New Mexican cuisine was added to the menu. But the Mexican dishes feature sauces such as mole verde and mole poblano, the recipes of which Antonio has re-created from memories of eating them growing up.
The couple are now making their home in Longmont. The Taos restaurant will remain open, Antonio Matus said, but the couple's focus now is on making the Longmont be the stepping stone to opening more locations around the Front Range.
"I found this one and started talking to the owner and I thought, 'Oh man, this could be a starting point (in Colorado) for me,'" he said.
For more information, visit antoniosoftaos.com.
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