Cathedral City Restaurant Re-opens After Damaged by Fire

A popular mexican restaurant in Cathedral City re-opened Sunday. The Taqueria Tortilla Factory and Bakery was one of several businesses damaged in an arson fire back on Dec. 6, some of those businesses were destroyed.

The taqueria was the first business that was damaged by the fire to reopen. The owner, Eloy Velasquez, told us opening day that his employees were eager to get back to work.

“I’m very excited now, we really missed this place,” said Velasquez.

For years, some have made eating at the Taqueria and Tortilla Factory a family tradition.

“We like the menudo here, it’s really good!” said Omar Villa, of Cathedral City.

A “Now Open” sign hangs above the restaurant and its bakery factory. Blanche Hernandez, of Cathedral City, says her taste buds had been looking forward to it for months.

“It seemed longer, longer than four months! I’m glad they’re back open,” said Hernandez.

The property’s manager says it cost about $15,000 to repair the bakery and nearly $70,000 for the burnt out restaurant.

“Everything you see here it looks great, it looks like nothing happened,” said Velasquez.

Velasquez told us what kept him going as he worked hard to re-build his business was the community’s support and with the help of the city — he never gave up hope.

The owner of the Date Palm Plaza expects three other businesses to soon re-open as well. Something many people hope to see.

“These family-owned businesses, this is their bread and butter. It would be nice to see them all bounce back like the way this place did,” said Jorge Camargo, of Thousand Palms.

The property’s manager told us Taqueria San Miguel is expected to re-open in about week from Sunday. Domino’s is set to re-open in three weeks and Ming’s Chinese restaurant will take about three months to re-build.

Also, the businesses that were destroyed will take nine months to re-build and we can expect to see new businesses occupying those spaces.