Maggie Rita's Mexican Kitchen may have only one location left in the Bayou City, but that doesn't mean the Carlos Mencia-owned chain is going down without a fight . . . Or at least that's how it appears on Facebook.
Local Amanda Newman took to Facebook to say goodbye to Maggie Rita's recently-shuttered Shepherd location — making sure to bring up the infamous 2012 comments from co-owner Santiago Moreno in which he labeled his customers "old Taco Bell clients" and claimed that women only care about margaritas at Mexican restaurants.
Happy to see that your location on Shepherd closed! Insulting Houston before we tried your food was kinda 'dee-de-deee' of you! We hope they all close soon."
While perhaps not the kindest of words — right down to using Mencia's outrageously offensive "dee-de-deee" catchphrase — Newman certainly hasn't been the first to lash out at the restaurant chain.
Operators of the Maggie Rita's fan account spent five days carefully crafting this response:
I thought fat people were supposed to be jolly."
Clearly, the high road was not an option.
"After all of those comments about Houston and Houston women, I said I'd never set foot in one of those restaurants," Newman tells CultureMap. "When I saw the one on Shepherd has closed, I thought it was hilarious. It was like all that bad karma got them in the end."
Newman says she wasn't surprised by the comment, but wasn't terribly offended.
"I'm not going to get upset or hurt by an insult a third-grader would say. It just goes to show that these idiot haven't learned anything. All those bad reviews were right after all."
Facebook fake out?
When CultureMap spoke with Santiago Moreno on Thursday, the co-owner was taken aback at the news, explaining it was the first he's heard of the situation.
"I haven't been on our Facebook page for months," he says.
"I'm the only one who can use it, other than a few promoters we hired in the past. These are professional people though, so maybe we were hacked . . . Whatever happened, I sincerely apologize on behalf of the company."
Five minutes later, Moreno called back to report the account in question — which only has 154 likes — wasn't started or operated by him.
He says that the official Facebook pages are only "friend" accounts (not "like" accounts) and listed as Carlos Mencia's Maggie Rita's and Maggie Rita's Modern Mex, the latter of which was started when the first account maxed out at 5,000 friends. The second account is currently linked up to the restaurant's website.
As of Thursday afternoon, the "jolly" comment to Newman remains posted on the Facebook fan page.
This Maggie Rita's restaurant critic didn't exactly receive a civil response. Fat joke anyone?
A vintage picture of chefs EJ Miller and Ryan Lachaine. Photo by 