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Hollister’s El Sabor Restaurant is very much a one-woman show, with owner Consuelo Contreras handling all food preparation, including making the sauces and tortillas, and cooking all the dishes herself on the kitchen’s six-burner stove.
As a result, her 20-item menu might be concise, yet it is varied, and the food carries the irresistible charm of authentic homemade cooking.
“I love to cook,” Contreras said. “It’s exciting to have people taste my food and see them finishing their plates. Sometimes I think, ‘I don’t want to be rich. I just want to bring a little piece of my home country for everyone to enjoy.’”
“Home” for Contreras was Michoacán, Mexico, where she began to develop her culinary skills under her mother, Mariana Pena’s guidance.
“She cooked a lot,” she said, “so I grew up with her food. She was always making tamales, buñuelos, and other things. Every day, I would go into the kitchen, and I’d learn. It was very good experience.”
Some of those dishes, like the tender chile rellenos with a deeply spiced sauce made with only tomatoes, onions and garlic, have made their way to El Sabor’s menu. So have the only-on-weekends corn tamales, topped with Contreras’ green sauce and milky sour cream, that are sweet and flavorful enough to serve as a dessert.
“The tamales are a little hard to make,” she said, “because you need to find the Mexican corn. It’s not any regular corn you can use; it needs to be the Mexican corn.”
(Contreras also offers menudo on weekends.)
At 14, her mother told her, “Go and make breakfast,” and from then on, she was responsible for cooking the morning meals for her brothers and herself.
When Contreras came to America at 19, she started polishing her restaurant skills at Chevy’s in Mountain View before moving on to the Black Bear Diner in Los Banos. She also picked up a little bit of the Brazilian style of Gilroy’s Chama Nativa Steakhouse during her two years there.
She was lured to open her own place after spending four years cooking for Hollister’s Faith, Hope & Love Center on Sunday mornings before her regular job.
She was encouraged by the churchgoers’ response to the meals she prepared there, which has also served as the basis for the current selections at El Sabor.
“A lot of people,” Contreras said, “would tell me, ‘Hey, your food is so good, why don’t you open a restaurant?’ I said, ‘Oh, maybe one day.’
That day came in October 2024, when the current location, formerly Mariscos Nayarita, became available. She remodeled the interior into a clean, inviting space, renovated the banquet room, and got to work in her very own kitchen.
“It was a great opportunity,” Contreras said, “because everything was already in place. I only had to fix a few things and get the permits. (The cost) was a bit steep, but it gave me the chance to say, ‘This is mine.’”
Contreras has kept the staff small and does all the cooking herself, waiting tables when needed. With everything made fresh and the ingredients prepared individually, down to grinding her own corn for her tortillas, the work is substantial. But Contreras manages it handily.
“Making meals gives me more energy,” she said. “I am happiest when the place is full, and I am serving food to the entire restaurant.”
Contreras’ favorite dish is Enchiladas Michoacanas, fried tortillas filled with chicken and potatoes, topped with a seemingly simple red sauce that still offers complex flavor.
“The sauce is too easy to make,” she said, “but the people say, ‘No, you put something different in there.” But it’s only the red peppers, oregano and garlic. That’s it. No tomato. But it’s very tasty.”
The tortillas also feature in the egg dishes on the breakfast menu, which are served with choices of potatoes, chorizo, or ham. Contreras also makes remarkable Chilaquiles from them, cutting them into squares rather than using prepared chips then frying them and serving them with the red sauce.
Other favorites of Contreras’ are the Morisqueta, chili con carne served over rice with beans, and the Red Mole with Chicken, with a chocolatey-peppery sauce made with almonds and peanuts, which she describes as “something very different from what others make, but people love it.”
René Villalon, a Hollister resident and regular at El Sabor, said you can tell the restaurant’s quality just from the salsa served at the table with the brightly colored tortilla chips.
“If you have a good chili sauce,” he said, “like the one that she serves before dinner, you know if that’s good, everything else is going to be better.”
Villalon’s favorite dish is steak and shrimp, one of several shrimp dishes on the menu, which also includes garlic shrimp, spicy shrimp, and shrimp fajitas with butter, onions and bell pepper. He describes the dish as “melt in your mouth, with very tender meat and shrimp cooked to perfection.”
“This is one of the nicest restaurants in town,” he said, “and I’ve been to just about every one of them. I’ve lived here for a long time, and I’ll tell you what, these are home-cooked meals.”
While she does not serve alcoholic beverages, due to her strong Christian beliefs, she does carry her own versions of aguas frescas, including horchata, tamarindo, and jamaica, all of which are treats and made fresh in-house with quality ingredients.
For Contreras, it is very important to cook everything according to the most traditional recipes and methods available to her, because it is the food she grew up with.
“When I go into some Mexican restaurant,” she said, “I feel the taste is not that authentic. It’s like canned food or something else. I can taste that the rice was made five days ago. Here, people get fresh food with the best ingredients.”
A few more from the menu at El Sabor:
Fried Taquitos with Potato and Chicken – On my first visit to El Sabor with friends, one tried this dish and offered me a taste. It was worth getting another order. Small folded tortillas are filled with mildly seasoned chicken and potatoes, gently pan-fried until tender, then topped with plenty of sour cream, shredded lettuce, tomatoes, and grated cheese with dabs of Contreras’ tomatillo sauce. The plate comes garnished with marinated onions and peppers, offering a colorful and tempting presentation. The kick of the green sauce is a nice contrast to the more savory fillings. Served with rice and beans, they make a filling lunch but are also worth ordering as an appetizer for the table.
Quesabirrias with Broth – Slowly stewed in chiles, garlic, and spices, the beef is wonderfully tender and decadently aromatic; the folded tortillas are packed with cheesy goodness; and the umami-rich broth is deep and layered. It comes three to an order with rice and beans and, like the taquitos, could easily be a shared appetizer.
Carne En Su Jugo – My favorite dish at the moment: tender, chopped slices of beef are drenched in the house green sauce and served with two slices of very crispy bacon, meant to be crumbled into the dish. This item really has it all, from the citrus sweetness of the green sauce to the savory flavor of the meat to the (do I really have to describe it?) thick-sliced bacon, which pulls the whole dish together. This is my go-to on the menu and a must-try.
El Sabor
204 4th St, Hollister
(831) 297-7087
Hours –
Monday 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.
Tuesday-Wednesday Closed
Thursday- Friday 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.
Saturday 9 a.m. – 8 p.m.
Sunday 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
El Sabor on Facebook
Recommendations for future Eat, Drink, Savor articles can be emailed to roberteliason@benitolink.com.
BenitoLink thanks our underwriters, Hollister Super and Windmill Market, for helping expand the Eat, Drink, Savor series and for giving our readers the stories that interest them. Hollister Super (two stores in Hollister) and Windmill Market (in San Juan Bautista) support reporting on the inspired and creative people behind the many delicious food and drink products made in San Benito County. All editorial decisions are made by BenitoLink.
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