‘We miss them as much as they miss us’: Iconic Chope’s Bar and Café closed since pandemic began

LA MESA, New Mexico - In the sleepy neighborhood of La Mesa, the iconic Chope's Bar and Café began serving patrons long before New Mexico earned statehood.

"My grandmother at one time was a bootlegger," recalled Margarita Martinez on Tuesday afternoon.

"She used to go to Juarez and buy liquor and bring it here," said her sister, Amelia Rivas, with a chuckle.

While New Mexico dining rooms scrambled to reopen and close in a matter of hours on Monday afternoon, the county's oldest bar and café has sat quiet.

“We do plan to open up again," said the third sister, Cecilia Yañez. "We miss them as much as they miss us."

La Mesa has a street named after their father, José 'Chope' Benavidez, in the neighborhood his family changed forever. In 1909, Chope's father opened up his small restaurant, which would become a southern New Mexico icon.

"My dad in the 1940s had to drop out of school and help them run the bar," said Martinez.

Chope's daughters would inherit his life's work, managing the restaurants with children and grandchildren of their own. His wife, Lupe also made the kitchen her second home, helping and guiding her daughters before dying at 98.

"It's a family restaurant, so the employees, the customers and the community are just like our family," Yañez explained.

Four years later, the pandemic hit.

“March the 18th was a Thursday," Rivas said. "And we closed. Who expected a pandemic? Who expected it would be this bad?”

The sisters' bar has never been closed longer than a week, but they decided to shut down as a precautionary measure while the virus spread through New Mexico.

"It's more about the humanity than anything else," explained Yañez.

At ages 81, 75 and 73, Amelia, Cecelia and Margarita also worry about their health and the health of their employees. All three sisters have underlying health conditions, including blood pressure, diabetes and atrial fibrillation.

"All of us are in age," Rivas said. "We're up there."

Thankfully, the bar and restaurant are entirely paid off. On a weekly basis, the sisters say they've checked on the health and well-being of their 31 employees, who are all receiving unemployment.

"For us, it's more important that people are safe than the money," said Martinez. "That does not worry us."

"We do plan to open up again," said Yañez. "We can't tell you when and we don't even know ourselves. But we do plan to open and will be very, very happy when they come back and see us."