When the business that would become El Rinconcito Restaurant struggled to attract customers, Estela Fernandez and her husband found another way to keep going.
Beginning around midnight, they baked hamburger and torta buns along with Mexican sweet breads such as conchas and puerquitos. They worked until about 5 a.m., when her husband left to report to another job at 6 and Fernandez began delivering the bread to restaurants around the region.
Neither had known how to bake before they started.
“We learned how to make bread,” Fernandez said in Spanish, with her son Victor helping translate. “The two of us would start at midnight and finish at 5 in the morning. My husband had to be at work at 6, and I delivered the bread.”
They maintained the bakery operation for about 10 years, supplying restaurants in surrounding communities even after their own restaurant began serving food.
It was one of several ways the family adapted during the difficult early years of a business that has now occupied its corner in Olathe for 23 years.
Most know Olathe as a small farming community with a compact downtown, but it has a personality that has been shaped in part by the independent businesses lining Business 50 and Main Fourth Street. To many people in Montrose, the town can feel like an afterthought. But Olathe has its own collection of establishments that give the community character.
There is Primitos, a Mexican bakery; the Busy Corner White Kitchen, a longtime diner and local staple; a taqueria; and the Busy Corner Market, a small neighborhood grocery store.
Among them is El Rinconcito.
Situated at Business 50 and Fourth Street, across from Olathe Middle High School, the restaurant’s name translates from Spanish as “the little corner.” Together with the White Kitchen, it is among the town’s scarce full-service, sit-down dining options.
The building is weathered in a way that gives it character, with remnants of its earlier uses still visible. Part of it was once a laundromat and clothing store, and old signage remains at the corner of the property.
Inside, El Rinconcito serves the familiar Mexican fare on which Fernandez built the restaurant, including enchiladas, burritos, rice and beans. It also offers pancakes, breakfast burritos and other breakfast items throughout the day.
Victor said some customers come in at 6 or 7 p.m. and still order breakfast.
A drive-thru, present since the business began, provides another option for customers picking up orders. The restaurant also continues to evolve. Chicken wings introduced several months ago have become a hit, Victor said, and El Rinconcito began, for the first time, serving alcohol at the beginning of August, including beer and margaritas.
That willingness to adapt has helped the restaurant endure for more than two decades. Its longevity was recognized recently when El Rinconcito was honored at the 2026 Small Business Awards.
For Fernandez, an immigrant who arrived in the area at 19 and still is not fully comfortable speaking English, the recognition affirmed years of work and sacrifice.
“I felt very proud,” Fernandez said. “Despite being Hispanic and not speaking English well—I understand it—I felt proud because I said, ‘So much work and so much effort have been worthwhile.’ It was motivation to continue.”
Fernandez came from San Baltazar, Jalisco, Mexico, which she described as a place filled with commerce. She grew up seeing businesses operating around her and became interested in owning one herself.
Her husband came from a much smaller community and had worked as a mechanic, Victor said. Estela was the one who became determined to start a business, while her husband ultimately supported her decision.
After arriving in Olathe, both worked multiple jobs—as many as three each, Fernandez recalled. She regularly passed the building that would eventually become El Rinconcito and imagined opening something there.
“One day, I would like to have that place and start a small business,” she remembered thinking.
The opportunity came unexpectedly. Fernandez saw the owner putting up a sign advertising part of the building for rent and stopped to ask about leasing enough space for a clothing store.
Instead, the owner asked whether she would be interested in buying the entire building.
Fernandez was caught off guard. She went home and presented the idea to her husband, Francisco, who initially resisted. They had no experience owning a business, did not have much money available and had no assurance that the venture would succeed.
Fernandez persisted.
“The little bit of savings we have, we are going to invest there, and we are going to make a business,” she recalled telling him.
The couple put approximately $20,000 in savings into the deal. Fernandez said they did not have the property inspected or appraised first. She liked the building, wanted a business of her own and committed herself to making something out of it.
The building was divided at the time. One portion had been used for a small food operation, while another housed the laundromat and clothing store.
Fernandez converted part of the property into a small apartment so she could remain close to both the business and her family. Two of their children were about 4 and 2 at the time, Victor said.
“She had to make sure we were close by,” he said.
The existing food operation was supposed to have an established clientele. Once Fernandez took over, however, she discovered that the customers she had expected were not there.
For the first three months, she said, they sold virtually nothing.
“I was very afraid,” Fernandez said. “When I came here, the woman said the place had many customers, but it didn’t. When I took over, I saw there was no clientele. Nothing—absolutely nothing.”
Fernandez and her husband considered giving up. They even tried to sell the building but could not find a buyer. With their savings already invested and no easy way out, they committed themselves again to making the business work.
That was when they turned to breadmaking.
The couple taught themselves to bake and began supplying restaurants with rolls, buns and sweet breads. The hours were exhausting, particularly for her husband, who went directly from baking through the night to his regular day job.
The bakery provided a way forward while Fernandez continued pursuing her larger vision for the property.
Cooking had always come naturally to her. Fernandez viewed food as a way to bring a household together. When her children were young and she had to leave home early, she prepared their meals ahead of time and left the food in containers for them.
When the restaurant began taking shape, she wanted it to provide that same feeling to its customers.
“I wanted people to come in and feel as though they were at home having dinner,” Fernandez said.
El Rinconcito began with basic Mexican dishes that the family enjoyed. From there, the menu grew as Fernandez continued experimenting.
Many of her ideas still arrive while she is working in the kitchen.
“When I’m in the kitchen, many ideas come into my mind,” she said. “I say, ‘Today, we can add this plate with enchiladas, rice and beans,’ or we can add something else.”
When business slows, Fernandez’s instinct is to offer customers something new. Over 23 years, that approach has produced a menu she now concedes may be too extensive.
“Whenever the business begins to slow down, I have an idea,” she said. “We’re going to add this and see if it works. Then we see, ‘Oh, yes, it worked.’ That is my motivation.”
The restaurant’s all-day breakfast, recent addition of wings and new beer and margarita offerings all reflect the family’s continued willingness to adjust.
El Rinconcito has also become a gathering place for the agricultural community surrounding it. Fernandez takes particular satisfaction in seeing ranchers and other workers come in and sit down for breakfast or lunch.
“I feel happy that every rancher can come and eat breakfast here,” she said.
The restaurant now draws customers from beyond Olathe as well, including people traveling from Grand Junction and other surrounding communities. For Fernandez, seeing those customers inside the restaurant carries particular meaning because of how uncertain its future once appeared.
She remembers approximately 15 difficult years filled with struggle and fear that the family would lose the business. At one particularly difficult point, Fernandez said, they gave up the trailer home they owned so they could continue pursuing their goal.
“We had to let the trailer go so we could continue with the business,” she said. “We didn’t care. We let that go, and we continued with the goal we had.”
There were also nights when the pressure became overwhelming. Fernandez recalled retreating to a corner of the kitchen to cry privately, away from her husband and children.
As the children grew older, however, they began contributing to the business and gradually removed some of the weight from their mother’s shoulders.
Fernandez described each family member as adding a “grain” to what she had begun.
Her older daughter, Marilyn, now manages the restaurant. Victor described her as the glue that has held the family together and almost a second mother to the younger children.
His younger sister, Mayra, works in the kitchen and remains close to Estela. Victor said she is the person who makes herself available when another employee calls out sick, needs a day off or when the restaurant otherwise needs help.
Victor also helps the family while working toward entrepreneurial plans of his own. Another son, Moises, has since become a business owner in Delta.
Victor said he and Mayra were too young to fully understand what their parents endured during the earliest years. Their older siblings saw more of it, and all four children have been shaped by their mother’s example.
“We don’t want to let it go to waste,” Victor said. “We definitely do our part, or try to do our part.”
Asked to describe his mother, Victor called her strong, independent and creative, as well as sweet, loving and down-to-earth.
“She’s always shown up for anyone,” he said. “She’s never discriminated or acted based on how someone treated her. She always treats everyone the same.”
Estela said the restaurant now takes care of the family members who depend upon it, though she remains hopeful that it will continue to grow.
That ambition is visible throughout the property. Fernandez said she planted every tree and plant and had a hand in each addition made to El Rinconcito. Piece by piece, she worked to turn a struggling business into something Olathe would embrace.
Even during the difficult years, she believed that effort would eventually be noticed.
“I always thought that everything comes through work and suffering,” Fernandez said. “I was never negative. I was always positive. I said, ‘Someday, someday, we are going to be recognized.’”
Twenty-three years after investing her family’s savings in a building with few customers and an uncertain future, Fernandez has received that recognition.
Justin Tubbs is the Montrose Business Times editor. He can be reached by email at justin@montrosebusinesstimes.com or by phone at 970-765-0915 or mobile at 254-246-2260.
