Is This Restaurant The Originator Of Tableside Guacamole?

Tableside food preparation at a restaurant is very much like giving diners the "dinner and a show" experience. What was once a practice at white tablecloth fine dining restaurants inspired by expensive French establishments, tableside preparation trickled down into more casual eateries. Deboning chickens and flambéing bananas foster at customer's elbows morphed into tossing Caesar salads, carving prime rib, and making guacamole right before patrons' fascinated eyes. As for the latter, Los Gringos Locos restaurant, which is just north of Los Angeles, claims to have introduced the country to the guacamole cart.

At Los Gringos Locos and Mexican restaurants all over America, the guacamole cart is rolled out of the restaurant kitchen laden with avocados, onions, peppers, and other guacamole essentials. The server then prepares the Mexican favorite according to the guest's specifications and places the freshly made dip on the table with tortilla chips. Customers dive into the creamy, delicious appetizer with the assuredness that it didn't get squeezed out of a plastic bag filled with premade stuff, but was freshly made by skilled hands. Los Gringos Locos opened in 1996 and began tableside guacamole service right away. It still serves the famous "live" guacamole today. As for whether or not it was actually the first restaurant to do so isn't exactly crystal-clear.

Despite guacamole having origins in Mexico hundreds of years ago, it wasn't until fairly recently that restaurants saw a market in preparing it tableside for guests. And while Los Gringos Locos says it was the first, Rosa Mexicano restaurant in New York City claims to have been making its guacamole tableside since 1984, preceding Los Gringos Locos by 12 years. And, really, does it even matter who did it first? Tableside guac is first and foremost delicious, but it was also a brilliant marketing move. Not only is it easy to make, but it's even easier for restaurants to tack on a few extra bucks to the cost if they can make it outside the kitchen and by the customer's sides.

If an eatery's guacamole isn't prepped tableside, does that mean it's not made fresh? Not necessarily. But that's generally difficult for the customer to know for sure. Is tableside guacamole better than packaged or even day-old dip? Many would argue that, yes, it is. It tends to be a little chunkier than pre-made guac. If you prefer creamier guacamole, an easy plastic bag hack exists for preparation. And most would agree that ingredients like ripe avocados, tomatoes and cilantro taste best as soon as they are chopped and prepped. So, while we may not know for sure who really developed tableside guacamole, we can at least keep on enjoying it and knowing that it can't get much fresher.