Rediscovering Anchorage History: Benny's Mexican Food Wagon

Food wagons have become a big thing in urban USA for the last ten or fifteen years.  But back in the early 80s when the university lent me out to the Muni, Benny's Mexican Food Wagon would be in the old flat parking lot (where the multi-story parking structure is today) at G Street and 5th Avenue for lunch.  I had lots of good lunches from Benny's.

Today, riding home from a couple of errands I ran into the original Benny's Mexican Food Wagon on Cope Street between Northern Lights and Benson.  And it's still serving Mexican food.

The food scene in Anchorage is a lot different now.  The other evening I was going to meet my wife at the Queen of Sheba Ethiopian restaurant.  But it turned out they are closed  Mondays and Tuesdays.  So we decided on Sushi Ya, which for us is a descendent of the old Yamato Ya which moved across the street and down the block when Sagaya raised their rent.  But the new location didn't work out that well - and the sisters who were part of the original family were in their 70s and ready to retire.  It was the last Japanese owned Japanese restaurant in town at the time as a Korean family took over.  That lasted a couple of years and then a South Anchorage restaurant moved in.  We shared a Sashimi Combo.

But as we were finishing, a former student/friend walked in so we invited her to join us and talked for another couple of hours.  We hadn't seen each other in a long time - family members with health issues in both cases - so it was a wonderful Anchorage kind of event that used to happen more frequently.