Time-traveling in Glendale, Arizona by opening the door of Manuel's Restaurant


Although I usually have to time-travel in my imagination, yesterday I did it IRL (In Real Life). You can do it too, by simply opening the door of Manuel's Restaurant in Glendale, which is at 57th Avenue and Peoria. No, I'm not being poetic, and Manuel's isn't paying me to "plug them", I'll see if I can explain.

I've lived in this neighborhood for over twenty-five years, and I really don't know how long Manuel's has been there, but I'm guessing since before I got here. And apparently they had a problem with the exterior of their building not looking very inviting. I was there yesterday and one of the waitresses explained that there had been complaints that the building looked too old, and so they fixed it up, at least the exterior. The 1990s (1980s maybe?) doesn't seem that long ago to me, but apparently the look just wasn't attracting customers, so they modernized it.

There's really nothing spectacular about Manuel's. It's a typical suburban Mexican Food place, not anything that people would rave about, or drive miles out of their way to see. It's what I would call "Americanized Mexican Food", for tourists. But I like the place. I like getting a big plate and being warned not to touch it because it's very hot, and I like their Pacificos on draft. OK, that's all I'm gonna say about it as a restaurant, let's get to the time-traveling.

The outside facade is just an outer layer. There are new doors, and you open them to the original doors. And when you go inside, nothing has changed. Nothing. Not even the manager, who's been there for over twenty years. Yesterday he helped me to remember the type of enchilada that I like, and can never remember which one. He shook my hand and smiled.

I took the photo at the top of the post from the latest Google street view, and I really don't remember much about how the exterior of the original building looked. After a couple of decades, I guess it needed a refresher. And inside is still the same, as is the food, and the people, and that's what matters to me!

Thank you for going to Manuel's with me! And yes, I'll have another Pacifico!
If you liked this article, and would like to see more, please consider becoming a patron of History Adventuring on Patreon. If you're already a patron, thank you! You make this happen!

 Click here to become a Patron!
History adventuring posts are shared there daily. The basic tier is a dollar a month, and the PhD tier, which includes "then and now" photos, billboards, aerials, videos, and super high-definition photos, is five dollars a month, and is discounted for seniors, veterans, and students.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is ...
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the...
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me...
Read more