Capitola’s El Toro Bravo reopens after a yearlong rebuild

Capitola Village restaurant El Toro Bravo rose from the ashes last week after a yearlong closure, proving it’ll take more than an explosion to keep the 59-year-old neighborhood eatery down. 

The family-run restaurant closed in December 2024 after a fire broke out early on Christmas morning. While the building was saved, the interior needed extensive restoration. After just over a year, the door of El Toro Bravo, with its distinct stained glass image of a bull, reopened on Monterey Avenue last week. The outside of the restaurant sports an eye-catching new coat of sky-blue paint, but the menu and hospitality are the same as they’ve been for decades. 

Just before 5 a.m. on Dec. 25, 2024, a gas line exploded at the residence next door to El Toro, igniting a fire at the restaurant. Hillary Guzman, a longtime server, had just finished hanging up her children’s stockings when she got a frantic call from her cousin, Kristie Baron, the owner. “I threw on whatever clothes I could find and came down,” said Guzman. “When I got down here, we just kind of stood and watched. It was unreal.” 

No one was injured, and firefighters were able to save the nearly 100-year-old building, but smoke and water damage from the hoses wrecked the inside. Guzman and Baron hoped they could reopen as soon as the power came back on, but the damage was substantial. The three residential units above El Toro were also unlivable. 

It was devastating, but it wasn’t the first disaster the restaurant faced over the past six decades. “This building has survived so much: floods, fire, earthquakes. We’ve made it through recessions, through COVID, we’ve made it through all these things,” said Guzman. “We’re not quitters. We’re not giving up, and we’re just gonna make it through,” she told herself at the time. 

Guzman and Baron’s grandmother, Delia Rey, opened El Toro Bravo in 1967, offering recipes from their family’s roots in Texas while it was still part of Mexico. Over the years, the restaurant has employed many family members. In 1999, Baron and her husband, John, purchased El Toro when Rey retired. Guzman started with a summer stint covering for her cousin who waited tables and was on maternity leave. More than 25 years later, she has built a career in hospitality. 

The road to reopening the restaurant was extremely difficult, and caused financial hardship for many family members, but she maintained her belief in her family’s resilience, said Guzman. It was particularly challenging for 91-year-old Rey, who owns the building, to navigate the insurance claim. On top of that, Rey relied on the rents from the damaged apartments to supplement her income. During construction, workers uncovered asbestos in the aging building, which had to be cleared out safely. “It was a long process,” she said.

“This building and this restaurant provides for multiple generations and households. It’s the gift that keeps on giving,” said Rey. “None of us are getting rich, but we all have had the opportunity to work, make a decent living, support our families and stay in this area.”

On Wednesday, El Toro Bravo finally reopened, and Rey was able to visit the restaurant she opened when Lyndon B. Johnson was president. The interior boasts a fresh white paint and new floors, and on the back wall mural depicts Rey in her youth as a vibrant dancer in a red dress. 

The menu is the same, and stands out from other local Mexican restaurants for its comforting flavors. The enchilada sauce on the tacolada ($18.50) — one of El Toro’s signature dishes — is made from house-made chicken stock, and is closer to gravy rather than chili- or tomato-infused versions. The sauce gets ladled over a football-sized flour tortilla wrapped around tender, celery-flecked, slow-cooked chicken, or shredded beef, and finished with lots of melty cheese. 

Just steps away from Capitola Beach, there are plenty of seafood dishes, including a crispy prawn taco ($8.50), stuffed with tightly curled pan-seared shrimp, shredded lettuce and cheese, and a tangy ceviche tostada ($15.25), so loaded with marinated white fish, fresh avocado and pico de gallo that lifting it is impossible. 

Longtime customers showed up en masse during the first few days, some who’ve been coming to the El Toro for decades. One couple told Guzman that they had their first date there more than 44 years ago. Another woman in her 30s shared how this was the place her grandmother brought her when she got good grades in school. 

“When anybody goes through a tragedy, and people reach out, it just reminds you of the community surrounding you,” she said. 

The most noticeable update is the eye-catching blue paint on the formerly off-white building, inspired by many people who told the family for years that they’ve driven by without noticing the place. Their goal, said Guzman, was to pick a color that people would never miss again.

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