About Maggie's Kitchen

Magdalena Garcia got her first cooking lesson around the age of 5 from a master chef – her mother.

It was little Maggie’s job to keep an eye on the bean-pot as it came to a boil, and then to keep the pintos well stirred as they simmered to tenderness.

“My mother would say to me, ‘Don’t burn my beans!’ and I would stir and stir,” explains Garcia, chef and owner of Maggie’s Kitchen, three-time Grand Rapids Magazine Award of Excellence nominee in the Ethnic/Mexican category, garnering the award in 1998.

By the age of 6, Maggie had mastered the fine art of making flour tortillas. From there, cooking and creating delectable repasts became second natura to her. She can’t remember a time when she didn’t know how to cook. “I just love cooking,” she says, describing her kitchen philosophy in a few words: “My mother taught me: ‘Everything fresh.'”

Those lessons learned at her mother’s knee have served Maggie well. Born in Chicago, Maggie and her family moved back to their native Mexico when she was 3. They settled in New Laredo, just across the border from Laredo, Texas, where she eventually took her first job cooking at a small restaurant next to the immigration office.

It wasn’t long before she was ready for something bigger and better. With a goal of getting into the kitchen of a fine hotel, Maggie soon found herself working for the Hotel Plaza Laredo. Subsequent positions in Texas included the Hamilton Hotel and La Posada Motor Hotel. When she informed the chef at La Posada about her decision to move to Chicago, he begged her to stay; but Maggie had made up her mind.

Relocating to the harsh winters of the Windy City, Maggie helped open the McCormick Inn in 1973 before joining the staff at the Hyatt Regency, where she worked in the French kitchen. It was on a fortuitous visit to her brother in Grand Rapids that Maggie and her husband, Eustacio, also a chef, fell in love with the area. They moved here in ’75, taking chef positions at a local Mexican restaurant.

Eustacio saw that to bring the true flavors of Mexico to Grand Rapidians, there was a need for authentic culinary ingredients and products from Mexico. In response to that need, he began a wholesale restaurant and grocery supply business, Moctezurna, that quickly grew to include retail, with Maggie in the kitchen developing recipes by day, and still working as a chef by nights.

With the business booming, Maggie was soon full-time at Moctezuma, working out of a small corner kitchen that offered takeout meals only. Customer demands for her delectable dishes, like menudo, guisado, and barbacoa, soon forced a small expansion and the addition of tables.

A second expansion took place in 1997, and Grand Rapidians have been taking notice of Maggie’s Kitchen ever since.