Tia Queta
“Survivors? That’s us!” Mary Ellen Lee exclaims.
Tia Queta, a traditional Mexican restaurant tucked into the northeast end of downtown Bethesda on Del Ray Avenue, is all about familia. It is run by Roberto Montesinos, his wife, Mary Ellen Lee, and their son Andrew, and families are their customers. In the past few months, the eatery has hosted christenings, a funeral and a Jewish shiva.
After graduating from American University, Roberto worked at several restaurants, including the old Rio Grande on Rockville Pike. When he opened his own place in 1980, he hoped his wide network of foodie friends would support him. They did. He also reckoned that there was a mostly unfulfilled yearning for traditional Mexican dishes—real chiles rellenos, seafood, and sauces like mole. Right again.
After a slow start, the restaurant began to do a steady business. Friends helped with word-of-mouth recommendations, and soon it was the grown-up kids of the first patrons, and then their kids. “We’ve served lots of three-generation families, and some fours,” says Lee, who’s Irish. She fell for Mexican food—and then for Roberto.
In the early ’90s, the couple’s landlord, who was ill, offered to sell them the building—a major reason they’re still operating. “We couldn’t pay the rent in Bethesda now,” Lee explains. Tia Queta looks modest from the outside, but the main dining room seats 60, a back room for parties can accommodate 75, and the roof deck—as rare as free parking spaces in Bethesda—can hold about 60 patrons. “In warm weather, the big draw is the roof,” Andrew says, adding that special-event bookings are key to keeping the restaurant profitable.
Tia Queta’s location is not ideal in present-day Bethesda; foot traffic is light at best. The restaurant’s current challenge is dealing with what’s going on around it. “The past six years there’s been construction in our immediate area,” Andrew says. “They close the street or put bags on the meters to prohibit parking, and they’ve broken gas and water lines.” According to Lee, Tia Queta’s lunch business has taken a big hit. “With all the new residential going up, we’ll be OK if we can live through the construction,” she says.
Many of Andrew’s friends from D.C.’s Sidwell Friends School and Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee—now highly paid professionals—come to help out on Cinco de Mayo. “Our customers may not know that the waiter that day is a lawyer or a CPA,” he says, laughing. Several years ago, during jury selection in a D.C. courtroom, a prospective juror signaled the judge when the panel was asked if they knew anyone involved in the case.
“I think one of the lawyers was my server at a Mexican restaurant in Bethesda,” she said.
“Oh really,” the judge said. “Well, you are dismissed—and how were the margaritas?”
Steve Goldstein is a freelance writer and editor and the former bureau chief in Moscow and in Washington, D.C., for The Philadelphia Inquirer.