That big yellow sombrero was quite the local landmark. A hat-shaped sign along Memorial Parkway marked the spot for El Palacio of Mexican Food. Reportedly the first Mexican restaurant in Huntsville, Alabama, El Palacio opened here circa 1966. It was part of an Amarillo, Texas-founded chain founded by married couple Jimmy and Nonie McClure. At the height of the chain’s powers, during the early 1970s, El Palacio boasted around 60 locations, stretching to Florida and Virginia.

NASA aerospace mastermind Wernher von Braun dined at Huntsville’s El Palacio a few times a week. In 1969, Oscar Gutierrez got a job cooking at El Palacio the day after arriving in Huntsville from Southern California. Eleven years later Gutierrez opened his own locally iconic joint, Bandito Burrito, a couple miles west on Governors Drive.

In 2017, after more than a half-century in Huntsville, El Palacio permanently closed here, with then-owner Doug Davis, Nonie McClure’s son, citing health issues and increased competition. The big yellow sign was removed.

Six years later, that hat’s back in Huntsville, on jars of Sombrero Salsa. The owners of the company behind the salsa, Sombrero Hot Sauce of Alabama, Kevin Smith and Ben Brown, also own the El Palacio restaurant located in Ozark, roughly 275 miles south of Huntsville in Dale County, Alabama. Smith and Brown purchased the Ozark location El Palacio from prior owner Linda Garner about 12 years ago, along with the restaurant’s recipes.

“We knew how good the salsa was,” Smith says via phone. “And we had dreams of one day being able to bottle and sell it.” Brown adds, “We did we did some market research on it and the amount of salsa nationwide that’s distributed, it’s amazing. We would try stuff off the shelf, and there was just nothing that compared to [the El Palacio] salsa. Nothing.”

It took them seven years to go from idea to execution though. “The biggest challenge of it,” Smith says, “was to get it to taste the same in the jar as it does in the restaurant. That was a huge hurdle, because it has to go through food safety standards with being cooked and brought up to temperature. That’s one thing that doesn’t happen in the restaurant, where we can refrigerate [fresh salsa].”

Does that mean Sombrero Salsa’s recipe is the same used at the old Huntsville El Palacio’s? Or perhaps close to it? The answer’s about as clear as a bowl of cheese dip.

“What I’ve gathered,” Smith says, “is the [El Palacio] franchise went belly up in ‘77. And then the El Palacio’s that were left were just kind of left to survive on their own. Now, there are still some El Palacio’s out there. But they don’t reflect anything of the original concept. The recipe we bottle now is the recipe we acquired from the Garners when we purchased the rights to the recipes and the restaurant’s 12 years ago, when this thing was no longer a franchise.”

Launched in early 2021, Sombrero Salsa is now available in 110 locations throughout Alabama and into Georgia and north Florida. In Huntsville, it’s at the Star Markets in Five Points and South Huntsville. Sixteen-ounce jars go for around six bucks each. You can also order jars and search for retail location on Sombrero Salsa’s website.

Memory’s a curious thing. On a recent afternoon, I picked up some Sombrero Salsa and dug into the jar with some corn tortilla chips. The salsa’s zing, sunset flavors and fine texture transported me back to the booth of an old-school Mexican restaurant. Was that booth inside El Palacio’s on the Parkway? Through the mists of time, it’s hard to say for sure. But I can say my jar’s contents were gone in two days. Because of the texture, Sombrero Salsa also works well in tacos and burritos. In addition to “original,” they also sell chunky and spicy versions.

Smith and Brown have been going to the Ozark El Palacio’s since they were little kids. Growing up, they were particularly fond of the chicken nachos and steak fingers, the latter a Tex-Mex version of Southern staple chicken-fried steak, Smith says. Before they teamed up to buy the Ozark El Palacio’s, Smith worked in structural steel drafting and Brown in rental property. They’d been friends since high school. Now in their 40s, they’ve both been self-employed for 25 years.

The restaurant business is notoriously perilous. Still, they couldn’t pass up buying their fave childhood restaurant and trying to make it shipshape again. The Ozark El Palacio’s originally opened in fall 1968. It’s been at its current Hwy. 231 location since 1986.

Smith and Brown’s Ozark restaurant goes through around 30 gallons of salsa each week. Last year, they produced 18,000 jars of Sombrero Salsa, which is packed by a company in Texas for retail sales.

Right now, a challenge to grow a product like a regional jarred salsa, Smith says, is since COVID, it’s much harder to get product on the websites and shelves of bigger retailers like Walmart. “Everybody’s selling online now,” Smith says.

Six years after the Huntsville El Palacio’s closed, the building at 2008 Memorial Parkway remains vacant and for sale. Two weathered hombre statuette by the entrance remain vigilant though. Next door, the comedy club Stand Up Live supplies the pulse on this corner now.

Back in the day, El Palacio’s menu must-dos included chile rellenos, enchiladas and fajitas. The Huntsville restaurant’s interior featured festively painted walls, Pancho Villa portraits and a stalactite-textured ceiling. It was a simpler time, with vastly fewer dining and entertainment options here. Still, El Palacio was a fun, shared experience for multiple generations of Huntsville residents. Good times had beneath a big yellow hat.

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