2009 Restaurateur Responds to Inaccuracies in SmartBrief Posting

Restaurateur Responds to Inaccuracies in SmartBrief Posting

The New Mexico Restaurant Association was pleased to see coverage of the Double Eagle and Peppers Cafe quest to make the world’s largest green chile cheeseburger in the National Restaurant Association’s SmartBrief newsletter. Unfortunately, the headline for the story identified Double Eagle and Peppers as being Texas restaurants and identified the green chile on the burger as “chili” with an “i”. General Manager Jerry Harrell sent the following response to the editors at SmartBrief for their reference.

The Double Eagle Restaurant and Peppers Café – one business and a proud NRA member for many, many years – is located in New Mexico.  We are embarrassed to be identified in the SmartBrief as being in located in Texas.  Please ask the powers-that-be for a location correction and a salute to the correct spelling of chile.

Mesilla is a quaint village located on the Rio Grande recognized by both the federal and New Mexico state governments as a historic district containing 9 buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  The Double Eagle Restaurant occupies the oldest building, to all outside appearances, a simple adobe home built in 1849.  But, since the Double Eagle’s founding in 1972, a step inside transports back to turn-of-the-century Victorian elegance with Baccarat crystal chandeliers, museum quality artwork and marble statues and a ceiling covered in real gold!  The restaurant offers a Wine Spectator award-winning wine list, tasty and tempting award-winning margaritas and the only dedicated beef ageing room in New Mexico.  While sumptuous luncheons, delightful afternoon teas and elegant chateaubriand dinners are certainly enjoyed here, the large building also houses a wonderful café called Peppers, dedicated to New Mexican cuisine.

It is Peppers Café which offers the world’s largest menu listed Green Chile Cheeseburger!  Green chile is a product of this section of the Rio Grande river valley called the Mesilla Valley.  The locally grown peppers are seasonally harvested (this is about to begin in mid-August), roasted and peeled and used in every product from cream of green chile soup to chile-coated nuts including a lovely green chile ice cream. The correct spelling is chile.  Now, SmartBrief’s shocking misspelling of such an important food item caused us some concern so we did some research.  We discovered there appears to be some sort of chopped meat dish with onions, tomato sauce and some kind of adulterated red chile powder which is referred to as chili.  We certainly don’t wish to be associated with THAT mismash!

We look to you to correctly identify our location – and, yes, it’s part of the United States, we do speak English, mostly, and although you can drink the water here, we can’t understand why we should when we’ve got perfectly good tequila – and also to correct the misspelling of a wonderful culinary ingredient so essential to the soul of New Mexico’s cooking – green chile!

Jerry Harrell
General Manager
Double Eagle Restaurant and Peppers Cafe