On its first day in business, Ruta Oaxaca fed three families.
For Jose Castillo and chefs Carlos and Felipe Arellano, that was enough to celebrate.
It was Jan. 3, 2021. Their new Mexican restaurant in Astoria had no indoor diners, no liquor license and no certainty about when either would arrive. Then, around 12:30 that Sunday afternoon, the kitchen received its first order.
“We were jumping, screaming excited,” Castillo recalled.
They had spent years helping build someone else’s restaurant business. Now, in the middle of a pandemic, someone was ordering from theirs.
Nearly six years later, Ruta Oaxaca (pronounced wah-HAH-kah) has grown to four locations, including restaurants in Patchogue and Woodbury. Its menu follows a culinary route through Mexico, drawing on the Arellano brothers’ upbringing in Oaxaca, family recipes and flavors from Mexico City, Puebla and beyond.
But the road to those dining rooms began long before that first takeout order.
Climbing the ladder
Castillo, 43, started washing dishes before moving to the front of the house as a busboy. He kept climbing, eventually becoming a regional manager for an expanding Mexican restaurant group.
Carlos Arellano, 52, and his brother Felipe, 54, followed a similar path through the kitchen, rising from line cooks to executive chefs. Carlos eventually became the regional executive chef.
By Castillo’s account, they had worked together for about 18 years before setting out on their own.
They knew how to run kitchens, manage dining rooms and help a restaurant company grow. Finding the right moment to put their own names behind one was another matter.
“It was always our dream, to do our own thing,” Castillo said.
Time, money and circumstances kept getting in the way.
During the pandemic, while they were helping distribute food to nurses and others, the conversation turned again to opening a restaurant.
This time, they decided to act.
An online listing led them to a small Astoria storefront. Walking inside, Castillo said, they felt an immediate connection to the space. They hoped future customers would feel it, too.
Then came the harder question:
What would make it theirs?
“It can’t just be another taco and burrito place,” Castillo said.
The answer was in the food the brothers had grown up eating, and the mothers and grandmothers who had taught them what Mexican cooking could be.
Reasons to believe
While Carlos and Felipe developed recipes, the partners painted walls, prepared the dining room and worked toward an opening on streets emptied by COVID.
Others questioned the timing. Restaurants were struggling to survive. Why open one?
The partners had doubts of their own once the work gave way to the daily realities of running a takeout-only restaurant.
“Those first four months, there were moments: Why did we do this?” Castillo said.
Family members helped cover shifts. The team offered samples of Mexican hot chocolate outside, introducing themselves to neighbors and giving people a reason to stop.
Every order mattered.
“And that day, three families got the Ruta Oaxaca Mexican experience,” Castillo said of the opening.
Over time, takeout gave way to outdoor seating and the return of indoor dining, starting with 1/4 capacity, then 1/2. A liquor license allowed the team to serve the margaritas customers had been asking about.
Then came some glowing attention from Eater New York, whose March 2021 review highlighted the restaurant’s moles. Castillo learned about the piece from a customer who sent it to him. He credits the coverage with helping introduce Ruta Oaxaca to a larger audience.
As more people came through the doors, the early uncertainty began to give way to something the partners had spent years working toward.
The road to Oaxaca
Grilled pescado and carne asada tacos are among the dishes on Ruta Oaxaca’s menu, which draws on regional Mexican cooking. (courtesy photos)
The restaurant’s name offers a guide to the menu.
Ruta Oaxaca, or “Route to Oaxaca,” reflects a journey through Mexican cooking, with stops along the way before arriving at the traditions at the heart of the Arellano brothers’ kitchens.
For Carlos, those connections are personal. His father operated a taco shop in Mexico City, and his memories of food stretch from family kitchens to the markets he encountered growing up.
“These recipes are from home,” he said.
Moles are central to that story. On the restaurant’s current menu, Oaxaca mole accompanies chicken enchiladas and chicken buñuelos, while a grilled New York strip steak comes with mole coloradito, sweet plantains and nopales salad.
Other dishes take diners farther along the route. Cochinita pibil tacos feature Yucatán-style slow-cooked pork, while vegetable empanadas combine spinach, corn, rajas and Chihuahua cheese with salsa verde.
When someone asks Carlos where to begin, he often starts with a question of his own: Have they tried ceviche?
From there, the conversation becomes a way to learn what a guest enjoys and introduce something new.
“We listen to what they like and we start from that,” he said.
For the brothers, some of the most satisfying exchanges happen after diners who arrived expecting familiar burritos and fajitas try something beyond their usual Mexican or Tex-Mex order.
“We’re sticking to traditional,” Carlos said.
Out to the Island
Ruta Oaxaca expanded to Long Island in 2022 with its second restaurant, at 30 E. Main St. in Patchogue. (courtesy photos)
The push toward Long Island came partly from customers.
People visiting the Astoria restaurant with relatives from Nassau and Suffolk kept suggesting the same thing: Open closer to us.
After a potential Garden City location failed to materialize, a real estate agent showed the partners a former restaurant on East Main Street in Patchogue.
Castillo remembered the feeling from Astoria.
“We felt that energy again, that little casita, the little home,” he said.
Ruta Oaxaca opened in Patchogue in 2022, followed by Woodbury in late 2023 and Brooklyn in 2024.
Today, its Long Island restaurants operate at 30 E. Main St. in Patchogue and 8025 Jericho Turnpike in Woodbury. The city locations are in Astoria and on Smith Street in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill neighborhood.
At Woodbury, tucked into the corner of Woodbury Town Plaza off Jericho Turnpike, introducing the restaurant to new diners remains part of Castillo’s work.
Once people find it, he said, some become ambassadors.
One regular returns each week with a goal of bringing the entire family.
The neighborhoods have different rhythms. The borough restaurants draw younger crowds and fellow restaurant workers looking to unwind. On Long Island, Castillo sees families spreading the word and customers arriving after first discovering Ruta Oaxaca in the city.
Across the locations, he wants the welcome to feel familiar.
“Welcoming, wanted and appreciated,” Castillo said. “That’s Mexican culture.”
Future regulars
Asked about the future, Castillo looks around the dining room.
He sees parents introducing their children to the food. Carlos notices the babies eating mole.
Now, when Castillo imagines the years ahead, he pictures the youngest people at the tables growing up.
“We see ourselves getting old, still serving traditional Mexican food,” he said. “We see a lot of young kids, babies, toddlers.
We’ll be old and they will be our regulars.”
If you go
For a first visit, Carlos suggests starting with ceviche for the table. Try the chicken buñuelos for an introduction to the kitchen’s signature mole, and let your server help you explore the tequila and mezcal selection.
If you’re making an afternoon of it, the website lists happy hour from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends. Offerings include $10 margaritas, $6 tacos and $8 appetizers, including vegetable empanadas, shrimp flautas and chicken buñuelos. Happy-hour small bites are served at the bar.
There’s also a $30 lunch special Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., with an appetizer, entree and margarita, plus a $39 dinner menu Sunday through Thursday, starting at 4 p.m., with an appetizer, entree and dessert. Some dishes carry an additional charge.
Other advertised specials include half-price margaritas on Thursdays and $10 margaritas all day Sundays. Check with your location for the latest offers before heading over.
Find menus and reservations at rutaoaxacamex.com.
Top: Ruta Oaxaca co-owners Jose Castillo and chef Carlos Arellano at their Woodbury restaurant. Not pictured is co-owner chef Felipe Arellano. (Credit: GLI/Mike White)
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