About TexMex Cafe
A family kitchen on Benavides Street, cooking from scratch for the town we call home.
TexMex Cafe is owned and run by Emilio Urupia and his family. Emilio grew up in Duval County learning to cook at crowded family tables, where recipes moved from hand to hand and nobody ever measured anything. When the chance came to open a small kitchen of his own in San Diego, Texas, he did not have to think twice about what kind of food it would serve.
The cafe lives in a modest building at 210 N Benavides St, right in the heart of town. Over the years the Urupia family has painted the walls, added tables, and filled the dining room with photographs from school graduations, church events, and one very long-running domino game. The building is nothing fancy, and that is exactly the point. It feels like a home because it is treated like one.
Everything we serve starts from scratch each day. Tortillas are pressed by hand, salsas are made fresh every morning, and the plates that leave our kitchen follow the same recipes the family has cooked for decades. We believe you can taste the difference when food is made slowly, by people who care about the people eating it.
Being a small-town cafe means we are woven into the life of San Diego. We cater the church bazaar and the school fundraiser alike. We remember how the regulars take their coffee. We send plates home with neighbors who are having a hard week, because that is what neighbors do around here.
If you are passing through Duval County or you have lived here your whole life, the welcome is exactly the same. Come by, pull up a chair, and let us feed you the way South Texas feeds its own.
con carino, the Urupia family