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Anniversary

Dick's Cafe in Las Cruces celebrates 60 years of business

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LAS CRUCES - This year marks Dick’s Café’s 60th anniversary. The popular family-owned restaurant started as a small hamburger stand in the Tortugas area and moved to its current location, at 2305 S. Valley Drive, in the early 1970s.

Since then, Dick’s Café has become a staple in the community, serving everything from burgers and sandwiches to Mexican food, steaks and barbecue.

“We offer a good meal at a decent price, and it just feels like home when people come in here,” said Ace Perez, the third-generation owner of Dick’s Café. “Everybody who comes in here, they know everybody else who’s eating here, they know the servers that have been here. I’ve had a server who has been here for 30 years, so people just know, they come in and they feel like they’re coming home.”

Perez, who has owned Dick’s for 20 years, said customers who went to college at New Mexico State University in the ‘70s often come into the restaurant looking for his grandfather, Dick Perez, the original owner, asking if he is still around.

Loyal customers who leave town also make it a point to track down Dick’s Café’s fresh, jarred chile, which ships throughout the nation, Perez said.  

“We’ve fed a lot of people,” he said.

More recently, Perez opened a Dick’s Café/Smokey Dick’s BBQ inside Frenger Food Court at NMSU, where he has been offering his menu to a new generation of college students for the past five years.

While Dick’s sells a lot of Mexican dishes, one of the more popular items is the green chile cheeseburger, Perez said.

Perez said his family has a long history of working in the restaurant business and that many continue to do so.

“I bought this place and my dad’s had the Chilitos (on S. Valley Drive and Foothills Road) ever since,” he said.

Perez’ cousins own Chachi’s Restaurant, near the university.

“They all started working (at Dick’s),” he said. “Everybody worked here at the beginning.”

Perez said he hopes to keep Dick’s a family business long into the future, and that his son, Dylan Perez, may be next in line to take over.

In celebration of Dick’s 60th anniversary, food and beer specials will be offered at the restaurant beginning in October and will continue throughout the rest of the year, with different specials featured each month. 

“I want to thank the community for supporting us for so many years,” Perez said.

For information about Dick’s Café, call 575-524-1360 or visit dicks-cafe.com.

Alexia Severson may be contacted at alexia@lascrucesbulletin.com.


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