A Mexican Border Town’s Accidental Masterpiece
Ignacio Anaya García was born on August 15, 1895, in San Carlos, Manuel Benavides, Chihuahua, Mexico, and worked at the Victory Club restaurant in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, a restaurant close to the US border and popular with Americans from a nearby base during World War II. Picture this: it’s just past closing time at a small border restaurant in Piedras Negras, Mexico. The kitchen is nearly empty, most staff has gone home, and suddenly a group of hungry customers walks through the door. What happened next would accidentally create one of the world’s most beloved snacks. Anaya created nachos while working there one day in 1943 when a group of US Army wives entered and the chef was nowhere to be found. This wasn’t your typical evening service – it was the birth of a culinary phenomenon. His nickname was Nacho, derived from the Spanish Ignacio, the Spanish version of Ignatius. The man who would accidentally change stadium snacking forever was just trying to keep his customers happy with whatever scraps he could find.
When Military Wives Met Mexican Ingenuity
He was working at the popular restaurant Club Victoria near the Texas-Mexico border when a group of soldiers’ wives from a nearby U.S. Army base came in to order a snack. The chef was nowhere to be found, so García temporarily abandoned his post to whip up something himself. These weren’t just any customers – they were the wives of American servicemen stationed at nearby Fort Duncan who had crossed the border for an afternoon of shopping in Eagle Pass, Texas. The women ordered an appetizer to enjoy during their talk. It is not certain whether it was too early or too late when the women arrived at the establishment. What is known is that the restaurant did not have the necessary ingredients to prepare the traditional menu. Imagine their disappointment when they discovered the restaurant was essentially closed for business. But Anaya, working as the maître d’, wasn’t about to let them leave hungry. As recounted by his son: My father was maître d’ and he said “Let me go quick and fix something for you.” This simple act of hospitality would soon become food history.
The Three-Ingredient Revolution
It is a thoughtful, beautifully balanced combination of just three ingredients: corn tortillas, longhorn cheese and pickled Jalapeños. Anaya used the culinary technique known as layering of flavors. In this case he layered three complementary ingredients that, working together, result in complexity and the flavor pops. What Anaya grabbed from his kitchen seems almost too simple to have started a global craze. When Anaya was unable to find the cook, he went to the kitchen and spotted freshly fried pieces of corn tortillas. In a moment of culinary inspiration, Anaya cut fried tortillas into triangles, added shredded cheese, sliced pickled jalapeño peppers, quickly heated them, and served them. The beauty wasn’t in complexity – it was in the perfect balance of three humble ingredients. Each component brought something essential: the crunch of the tortillas, the richness of melted cheese, and the heat of pickled jalapeños. Anaya recalls that “this woman who raised me used to feed me quesadillas.” That delicious quesadilla taste, tortillas with melted cheese, was the memory and experience that eventually guided Anaya to concoct nachos, adding the jalapeño for an adult bite.
The Name That Stuck Forever
After tasting the snack, Finan asked what it was called. Anaya responded, “Well, I guess we can just call them Nacho’s Special.” In Spanish, “Nacho” is a common nickname for Ignacio. The moment when a dish gets its name is often overlooked, but this one was pure spontaneity. His customers were so impressed they asked for seconds, and they joked that the dish should be called Nacho’s Special, because Nacho was the nickname for Ignacio. It wasn’t a marketing campaign or a carefully planned brand launch – just a group of satisfied customers suggesting the most obvious name possible. The dish became so popular, the owner of the Victory Club, Roberto de los Santos, put his creation on the menu as Nacho’s Especiales. What started as “Nacho’s Special” gradually morphed into the simple word we know today. Then he added some sliced jalapenos and served it to the ladies and called the snack “Nacho’s especiales”. Later the dish was shortened to “special nachos” and plain “nachos”. Sometimes the best names are the most obvious ones.
From Border Restaurant to Stadium Empire
His ballpark nachos were first served at Arlington Stadium during the 1976 season, and they were a hit, to the tune of $800,000 in annual sales, causing Liberto to create another company, Ricos Products Co. (San Antonio), specifically to market the delicacy. Frank Liberto had a completely different problem than Anaya – he needed to serve nachos to thousands of people as quickly as possible. As a concessionaire, transaction time was key—Frank didn’t want customers to wait more than a minute in line for their snack. To meet this demand, he came up with the idea of warming up a can of cheese sauce, ladling it over the chips and then sprinkling jalapeños on top. What Liberto created wasn’t exactly Anaya’s elegant original – it was engineered for mass production and speed. A dish of nachos sold at the stadium for $1.25, or ~$6.60 today, with a profit margin of ~80%. In 1979, according to a 1980 story in Box Office, the Rangers sold 531k orders of nachos, compared to 92k orders of popcorn. The team’s total attendance was 1.3m that year, meaning one of every 2.4 fans ate nachos. This wasn’t just a snack anymore – it was a business phenomenon.
Howard Cosell’s Accidental Advertisement
During the September 4, 1978 Monday Night Football game between the Baltimore Colts and Dallas Cowboys, sportscaster Howard Cosell enjoyed the name “nachos,” and made a point of mentioning the dish in his broadcasts over the following weeks, further popularizing it and introducing it to a whole new audience. Sometimes the best marketing comes from the most unexpected places. Cosell was trying to take up some dead air and he says ‘They brought us this new snack—what do they call them? knock-o’s or nachos?’ He started using the word ‘nachos’ in the description of plays: ‘Did you see that run? That was a nacho run!’ Cosell and others used the word for weeks after, allowing nachos to branch out from their Texas birthplace. Cosell wasn’t paid to promote nachos – he just genuinely enjoyed saying the word and incorporating it into his colorful commentary. Liberto credited the spicy snack’s boom in popularity to a Dallas Cowboys game broadcast on “Monday Night Football” in 1977, when announcer Howard Cosell mentioned them several times. In an era before social media, a sports broadcaster’s enthusiasm was worth millions in advertising. One man’s genuine delight in a silly-sounding snack name helped turn nachos into a national obsession.
The Secret Science of Stadium Cheese
What he did that no one else had done before, was create the pump-able consistency of the orangey-gooey goodness we see today—what the company calls “cheese sauce.” Though some versions are Wisconsin cheddar-based like Anaya’s original, according to the company most of the products are blends. (According to the Food and Drug Administration’s standards, the sauce is technically not “cheese,” but that hasn’t stopped fans from pumping it by the gallons since). What exactly is that orange liquid gold that gets pumped over your stadium nachos? Each number ten can contains 107 ounces of the condensed cheese conconction to which 32 ounces of water and 20 ounces of pepper juice are added. Once combined, the cheese blend is put into a dispenser like the pump or button-operated machines you see at concession stands today. “That’s an added 52 ounces of servable product,” Tony says. The formula became so valuable that industrial espionage was actually a concern. His recipe was top secret—so secret that in 1983 a 29-year-old man was arrested for trying to buy trade secrets into Liberto’s formula. Someone literally tried to steal the cheese sauce formula – that’s how profitable stadium nachos had become.
A Global Empire Built on Three Simple Ingredients
The global market size for the snack, including the fancier versions that evolved from Anaya’s creation as well as humble ballpark nachos, is now estimated at ~$2B. What started as a quick fix for hungry customers has evolved into a multi-billion-dollar industry. Today, Ricos has a presence in over 60 countries with a network of more than 200 distributors worldwide. The Liberto family’s innovation didn’t just stay in American stadiums – it conquered the world. In the 1980s, ~80% of US movie theaters were selling Ricos nachos, according to Tony Liberto. The decade brought immense success for Ricos, as it branched into Sam’s Club, attracted Coca-Cola for a co-advertising campaign, and distributed enough products to supply ~200k orders of nachos per day. Consider the mathematics: from one desperate maître d’ trying to feed four hungry women, we now have companies producing enough cheese sauce for 200,000 servings daily. ~100 US stadiums, including the Green Bay Packers’ Lambeau Field and the University of Alabama’s Bryant-Denny Stadium, sell products from Ricos. Anaya probably never imagined his improvised snack would end up at legendary venues like Lambeau Field.
The Man Who Never Got Rich
Anaya once told Bill Salter, a journalist, “It’s too late to make the millions…maybe not millions, but a lot of money,..I might once have made.” Unaware of the importance of trademark and patents, Anaya did not trademark or patent nachos, even when a lawyer friend suggested it. “I thought it would be too much trouble, but of course, then I didn’t know how popular they were going to become.” This might be the most bittersweet part of the nacho story. They’ve got them as far away as Chicago and Saudi Arabia,” Anaya once exclaimed. He could’ve included London, Tokyo and Mumbai. Anaya watched his creation spread across the globe while he remained a restaurateur in a small border town. When the Victory Club closed in 1961, Anaya opened his own restaurant, Nacho’s Restaurant, in Piedras Negras. Anaya died on November 9, 1975, leaving a son, Ignacio Anaya Jr., who went into banking, and 5 other surviving children. He lived to see nachos become famous but died before witnessing their transformation into a global empire. The man who created a billion-dollar industry earned his living serving customers one plate at a time until the end.
October 21st: A Day for the Ages
International Day of the Nacho is celebrated annually on October 21st, and in 2025 it will fall on a Tuesday. To celebrate Anaya’s invention, the city of Piedras Negras holds a three-day Nacho Fest every year around October 21, the International Day of the Nacho. Piedras Negras hasn’t forgotten its most famous culinary export. A bronze plaque was erected in his honor in Piedras Negras. And October 21 was declared as International Day of the Nacho. Annual nacho competition is held during the celebration, and Anaya’s son Ignacio Anaya Jr. served as a judge until his death in 2010. The festival continues Anaya’s legacy, turning his simple act of hospitality into an annual celebration. Note: Piedras Negras continues to celebrate “The International Nacho Festival” each October — complete with live music, art, cultural activities, and a “giant nacho” contest. What started as an emergency meal for four women now draws thousands of visitors to a small Mexican border town every year. It’s the kind of tourism boost Anaya never could have imagined when he was just trying to avoid disappointing his customers.
