Greenfield’s El Rinconcito is a South County gem, and commands your attention.

In order for Ramon Alvarez to pursue the craft he knew he wanted to build his life around, he had to wait for his parents to immigrate from Mexico to the United States.

“My dad, he wanted [the men] to work the lands and animals, and the women to learn the cooking,” he says.

But when his parents immigrated when he was 9 or 10 years old – he’s not precisely sure – he spent a year working in the kitchen at his aunt’s restaurant by the beach in San Juan de Alima in the state of Michoacán. It was a year that changed his life.

Alvarez immigrated to the U.S. when he was 11. The journey took about a month, as he was detained at one point for about two weeks, in Mexico, but he finally succeeded – he hiked, with others, for over 12 hours in the desert with no water – and was able to join his parents in Salinas.

While attending Alisal High School, Alvarez would wake up at 4am and help his mom make food for his father, older brothers and their coworkers in the ag fields. He started working in restaurants not long after – Subway, Chipotle, taquerias – but the most formative was at the Olive Garden in Salinas, where he learned how to run and manage a restaurant. Another transformative moment was when, after graduating, he was able to apply for (and was accepted into) the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program under Barack Obama’s presidency. Alvarez renews every year, and is able to stay in the country legally.

In 2016, when he was just 23 years old, he had saved up enough money to buy a house in Greenfield – his parents eventually moved in with him – and when a restaurant on a corner in town shut down a few years later, he jumped at the chance to buy the space and start his own business.

El Rinconcito – “little corner” in Spanish – opened in 2018 (its fifth anniversary is coming up Aug. 18). By all appearances, it is a smashing success. On weekends, the place is packed with people enjoying a leisurely meal with super-sized cocktails, and Alvarez says the restaurant does brisk business on weekdays too.

There are countless Mexican restaurants in Monterey County, but there are things that set El Rinconcito apart. For one there’s the furniture, which was all handcrafted in Guadalajara. The cocktails are likewise impressive, many served in giant glassware that could be meals unto themselves, but the food is what stands out most. It keeps you coming back – over the course of about five weeks this past spring, I ate at El Rinconcito three times.

One friend I brought there twice, after biting into his burrito, made a comment to the effect of: “It’s not that the food is different from other Mexican restaurants, it’s just better.”

Recent order favorites include the quesabirria tacos and the tacos gobernador. The former are a marriage of stewed barbacoa beef, melted cheese, onions, cilantro and roasted tomatillo salsa, with a side of consommé – beef broth – to dip the tacos into. The gobernador tacos contain grilled shrimp, guacamole, sour cream, cheese, onions, cilantro and salsa verde.

Each bite of either taco is a revelation. What makes them even better is that both are served in a housemade, fried corn tortilla, so the flavor also packs a crunch.

Inspired by his time cooking at his aunt’s restaurant by the beach, seafood features prominently on Alvarez’s menu, particularly ceviches. But by no means is it a seafood restaurant – it has it all: bistec ranchero and barbacoa, huaraches, sopes and flautas. One of the most popular dishes, Alvarez says, is the molcajete – a combo of grilled chicken, beef, shrimp, chorizo and nopales served in a volcanic rock, which looks somewhat like a cauldron.

Alvarez is currently in Dos Palos in Merced County, where he opened a second El Rinconcito five months ago and is training staff.

“My future goal is to be back and forth, checking in on both restaurants,” he says. Only recently has Alvarez started working six days a week instead of seven, because he just hired a new cook in Dos Palos.

“It’s a necessary thing,” he says.

EL RINCONCITO 246 El Camino Real, Greenfield. 856-8228.