In 1966, Restaurant Pepe opened. It was to later morph into Las Palmeras (today’s Palmeras) and spin-off a few sister restaurants: Pepes Grill, Pepe’s BBQ, Pepe’s Plaza (aka Pepe’s Place).
In 1973, filming wrapped on
Pilotos de Combate on its Cozumel location. It was a Mexican B movie about the Mexican Airforce strafing and bombing a drug cartel on the island. In the picture below is: Actor Fernando Lujan, actor Alberto Vázquez, Don Eduardo Ruiz (“Don Pepe,” the founder of Restaurant Pepe’s, and the owner/operator at the time), and actor Hugo Stiglitz. They are standing in front of Restaurant Pepe on the corner of the malecón and Juarez. Restaurant Pepe was a food stand in the municipal market on that corner and four or five tables on the sidewalk.
Later, in March of 1974, Hunter S. Thompson came to town to write his book
The Great Shark Hunt. He used to sit at one of the tables at Restaurant Pepe and record his interview for Playboy Magazine there.
The sign in the background that reads “Costa Oriental” points the way to the east coast beaches straight down Juarez, which you could drive on all the way from the municipal pier to Mezcalitos back then.
Later in 1974, the city government tore down the mercado (including Restaurant Pepe) and rebuilt the new mercado where it stands today. In 1975, Eduardo Ruiz Pina’s daughter, Noemi (Mimi) married Jose (“Pepe”) Becerra Martin and together they built a new, larger restaurant on the same site of the old Restaurant Pepe, but with a much larger footprint. First it was named “Las Palmas,” but soon thereafter changed to “Las Palmeras.” Today, the place is known simply as “Palmeras,” and you can see Pepe, Mimi, and her mom having breakfast there together most mornings.
If you ever have the occasion to look up at the bottom side of the roof tiles in Palmeras, you will see that they are impressed with “Marseille” and the name of the tile company that made them there. The roof tiles came over to Cozumel from France as ballast in sailing ships beginning in 1875 and continuing until around 1905, when the bottom dropped out of the trade in Dyewood.
