A fire in the early morning hours of June 20 left the beloved east side location for El Sancho destroyed. The cause of the fire was ruled accidental. According to Bend Fire & Rescue, the fire started after ashes from an outdoor cooking operation were improperly disposed.
And while the space on Dekalb Avenue is uninhabitable now, the owners of El Sancho said they plan to start over.
"We plan to rebuild our Eastside restaurant space! It will be new and different but it will still have all the Sancho vibes. We'll keep you updated along the journey," owners Joel Cordes and Jon Barvels wrote on social media.
For now, Cordes and Barvels encourage people to visit their other locations, including El Sancho's west side location on Galveston Avenue, and its carts at Crux Fermentation Project and Hayden Homes Amphitheater.
According to the 2019 Source Weekly story naming El Sancho our Restaurant of the Year, Cordes launched the first El Sancho as a cart in downtown Bend in 2010, near The Blacksmith. When he took some time off to make bagels at Rockin' Dave's, he met Barvels. When Cordes opened El Sancho at the home-improvement resale spot, Pakit Liquidators, he and Barvels became partners. When Pakit closed not long after, the pair moved the cart to Crux, and in 2015, opened their brick-and-mortar location on Dekalb in 2015 as a way to gain a prep space for the cart. The pair sourced recycled materials to build out the space and create the signature El Sancho eclectic vibe. Cordes and Barvels hired Carmen Garcia, a cook who'd worked in the Dekalb space — a former Mexican restaurant — since 1992, who brought her specials and Veracruz-style foods to the menu. El Sancho has long cooked its signature meats on rocket stoves, 25-gallon wood-fired kettles that allow for cooking big batches over high heat.
"We've considered ourselves a sort of cockroach of the restaurant industry," the owners wrote this week. "Resilient, hard to get rid of, and very adaptable. We'll pop up in alleys, use any kitchen available in odd hours, and always find a way to keep moving forward. In typical cockroach fashion we are doing just that as we navigate how to keep team Sancho moving forward."
