How it started
History
Carlos Mencia had an interest in food, and his friends suggested that he make a business out of it. Mencia met Santiago Moreno, a restaurateur, who suggested that the two of them start a restaurant chain. Mencia partnered with Moreno, who along with David Quintanilla, was one of the two principals of the Restaurant Resource Management Group, to open Maggie Rita's. The first Maggie Rita's opened was located in the Galleria area of Houston. T.J. Aulds of the Galveston County Daily News characterized the opening as a "test run" and Mencia said that "We learned a lot from that experience. We tweaked a lot of things from what we learned there."
Shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Maggie Rita's opened in that city. Around 2007 a former Houlihan's location in Houston was replaced with Maggie Rita's. Allison Wollam of the Houston Business Journal called the restaurant "a new upscale Mexican food concept." In 2009 Syd Kearney of 29-95 said that Maggie Rita's was an "upscale Tex-Mex sports bar." The Maggie Rita's in Galveston, Texas opened on July 29, 2010 in the Armour & Co. building in The Strand district. The Galveston location was the number three Maggie Rita's. Maggie Rita's had replaced a Fuddrucker's location. Laura Elder of The Galveston County Daily News said "some saw it as a strong sign of Hurricane Ike recovery and welcome investment in the island’s downtown." By January 2012 the restaurant in Galveston had closed.
In mid-2012, the three remaining franchised Ninfa's locations owned by Santiago Moreno, in the Kirby Drive area, the Galleria area, and the Interstate 45 Gulf Freeway area, were converted into Maggie Rita's. Katharine Shilcutt of the Houston Press rated the food at the new restaurants negatively and said that "[i]t represents a new nadir for a once-respected and beloved Houston Tex-Mex institution." Shilcutt further added that the takeover caused an "uproar" in Houston and that "to many longtime Houstonians (me [sic] included), the deal with interloper Maggie Rita's may as well have been a pact with the devil."
As of April 2013 only one Maggie Rita's restaurant remains in operation.
From Wikipedia’s article on Maggie Rita's, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2