Dolores “Lola” Sandoval didn’t live to see the restaurant her son’s naming for her open, but she lived long enough to be awesome.

Working as a cocktail waitress in San Antonio, she raised four children on her own. Away from work, Lola loved to dance and listen to Motown music. She loved cooking for her friends and family and playing practical jokes on them too.

Decades later, in her early 70s, Lola relocated from to Huntsville, Alabama to help her son Filemon Sandoval, a rising star in the local restaurant scene with Rosie’s Mexican Cantina, who was opening his own place, Phil Sandoval’s Mexican Restaurante, in 2008.

“She sold everything she had back in San Antonio, moved here” Phil Sandoval recalls on a recent afternoon. He’s seated at a four-top table in his eponymous eatery’s festively decorated dining room. “She sat back in the kitchen and we were cooking and she’d say, ‘This is good’ and ‘This isn’t good.’”

After a couple years in Huntsville, where she saw her son’s University Drive restaurant become a hit, Lola moved back to San Antonio. Unfortunately, after contacting COVID, her health took a sharp downturn, she had a stroke and in July 2020 she died.

“It was very hard, me being in Huntsville and she being in Huntsville,” Sandoval says. “But there was never a moment that I wouldn’t talk to my mom. If it was midnight, two o’clock in the morning. She would sleep during the day because she couldn’t sleep at night so we would talk for hours. And those are things that I miss.”

In mid-2023, Sandoval plans to open Lola’s Cocina (translation: “Lola’s Kitchen”) in honor of his mom. The restaurant will be located at Town Madison, the multi-use development in the shadows on minor-league team Rocket City Trash Pandas’ stadium, in the city of Madison. Sandoval opened his second Phil’s location, in Madison, last fall.

Asked why it’s important to honor his mom in a restaurant now, Sandoval steadies himself and says, “This is a tough one. I grew up with a hard-working mom, worked three jobs to support four kids, so I want to give her that vision, that power that she showed me. Never to look back. Keep going. It’s sad she’s not here to look at what I’ve done, but I think she knows already.”

The Lola’s Cocina concept will be fast casual with a drive-thru. Sandoval says the menu will draw from his mom’s personal recipes and be 60 to 70 percent new, with the rest being classics from Phil Sandoval’s, where signature items include their fish tacos.

“It will be more authentic than Phil’s,” Sandoval says of Lola’s forthcoming menu. “And all kinds of margaritas.” He adds that Lola’s will be offering breakfast too. “So you’ll have a lot of the breakfast tacos that I grew up with.

A San Antonio native, Sandoval grew up looking forward to family meals Sundays at his grandma’s house. There, Sandoval’s grandma cook turkey, brisket, tamale, country foods and other hearty eats.

“It was different every Sunday,” Sandoval recalls. “There must have been 15 grandkids and we would all gather and eat together and then go play bingo and have fun.” Sandoval began helping his grandma cook those big Sunday meals for the family. “That’s how I learned to cook,” he says. “From the hands of my grandmother.”

A subtle nod to Sandoval’s food origin story can be found inside the Phil’s dining room. There, on the ceiling beam above the silver cylindrical silver machine that makes the restaurant’s tortillas, is a metal plaque with his grandma’s old address: “2024 Hidalgo St. S.A. TX.”

Sandoval’s favorite childhood restaurant in San Antonio was Ray’s Drive Inn, “Home of the Original Puffy Taco.” Although some people assume he’s from Mexico, his family going back to his great grandmother were all from Texas, he says.

In San Antonio, Sandoval was working in the electronics business. His company’s CEO asked him about moving to Huntsville. At first, Sandoval wasn’t so sure about that. But he visited Huntsville and things clicked. He’d been around the service industry before, and gravitated to it again in Huntsville.

Sandoval worked various Huntsville service industry jobs, including locally iconic now shuttered spots like Heritage Club and El Palacio of Mexican Food. Coming up, he started with server and kitchen jobs before rising to management.

He joined the Rosie’s Mexican Cantina team around 1995. Sandoval worked with Rosie’s restaurateur David Martin — whose Huntsville brands also include Steakout, Walton’s Southern Table and Blue Plate Café — for around 24 years before striking out on his own.

Sandoval credits Martin within showing him how to treat people, from employees to guests. “If you want respect, you need to earn it,” Sandoval says.

Away from work, Sandoval’s interests include watching NBA basketball and Dallas Cowboys football. When he cooks at home, it’s often Italian. Spaghetti is a personal go-to. But he also does Tex-Mex at home sometimes, including a family tradition of tamales on Christmas. If he’s eating fast-food, it’s probably Krystal or Popeyes.

Phil Sandoval’s original location has a guest capacity of 260 and employs a staff of around 55. The Madison Phil’s, 320 and 75. For Lola’s, Sandoval is aiming for 150 capacity and 50 or so staff. Longer term plans include eventually opening a restaurant in Huntsville’s Jones Valley area.

Decades into Huntsville dining, Sandoval’s seen his share of changes and constants. Recent challenges include the diminishing lunch business, due to many more people working from home (and therefore eating lunch at home more often too).

He says he still loves interacting with guests at his restaurants and seeing them have a nice time out. The most rewarding part of his work now is seeing longtime regulars experiencing big life moments at Phil’s.

“When we first opened, we would have all these [marriage] proposals,” Sandoval says. “Then they’d come back when they were pregnant. Then they’d come back with their kids and now they have a whole family.”

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