Hiller manages area's most outdoorable restaurant

By LEN LEAR

I've met hundreds of restaurateurs over the past 25 years of writing about area restaurants, but there is none I respect more than Carlos Melendez, owner of Coyote Crossing in Conshohocken since December of 1996 and a second Coyote Crossing in West Chester as of January 29, 2004.

When Carlos came to the U.S. From Mexico City 13 years ago, he was 22 and dreaming the American Dream. (Carlos grew up dirt-poor in Mexico City, where he had to join a gang to survive, "and I did some things I shouldn't have.") Speaking no English, Carlos got a job as a busboy at a small Mexican restaurant, Tapas, in Northern Liberties. (He came to Philadelphia because of a young woman from this area he had met in Cancun, where she was vacationing with her mother.)

By working 24/7, Carlos worked his way up to waiter, then restaurant manager, then chef. By the time he was 28, he opened Coyote Crossing at 800 Spring Mill Rd. in Conshohocken, paying way more rent than he could afford. I visited Coyote Crossing two weeks after he opened, and on a Friday night there were only two other customers in the restaurant. I thought Carlos had as much chance of succeeding as I had of playing quarterback for the Eagles.

But thanks to Melendez' incredible work ethic, intelligence, unalloyed optimism, charismatic personality and rave reviews in area newspapers, several months of birth pains produced what has eventually become the most successful Mexican restaurant in the Delaware Valley. It also has what is arguably the most beautiful patio in the area -- filled with trees and plants and water fountains and stylishly dressed customers.

"We open the patio up in April because people in the Philadelphia area have cabin fever by then," said manager Marc Joseph, 62, whom many Hillers will remember fondly as the one-time manager of the now-defunct Stella Notte and, before that, Pollo Rosso, as well as Solaris Grille. (Joseph's wife-to-be, Jayne, whom he met at Pollo Rosso, owns Follicles, a hair salon next to Night Kitchen in Chestnut Hill.)

Joseph, who grew up and 7th and Girard Avenue, was in the textile business for 34 years going to work for Brasserie Perrier as a banquet server and later sales manager. "The patio will stay open through October as long as the weather is nice," he explained. "We have even had it open as late as January as long as the weather is decent and customers want to sit outside."

In the past month we had dinner twice on the Coyote Crossing patio. Both times every one of the 38 tables was occupied by 8 p.m., with several more people waiting at the bar and in a picturesque outdoor area to be seated. A couple of the specials -- a Chihuahua cheese fondue with tortillas and a Chilean sea bass entree with shrimp -- were absolutely ambrosial, with all four diners at the table blissfully moaning almost in musical rhythm.

Some of the other entrees, priced from $15 to $25, that Carlos can't take off the menu because customers will not let him are: fresh shrimp coated in specially seasoned bread crumbs, served with a smoky dipping sauce; Carlos' grandmom's recipe for poblano chilis stuffed with an exotic mixture of shredded pork, pecans, almonds, raisins, cinnamon, olives and Mexican herbs, baked with a gentle roasted garlic tomato sauce; and a variety of nachos, enchiladas and fajitas.

(If you go to Coyote Crossing and are lucky enough to have Roberto Gonzalez as your server, you are in for a treat. He is extremely personable, efficient and knowledgeable about every aspect of the menu.)

As so many other successful businesspeople have done before him, Carlos Melendez went into debt (in 2002) to finance a new business, a second -- much larger and far more spectacular -- Coyote Crossing. It was to be a $2.5 million project in a former bank building at 102 Market St. in West Chester.

Carlos picked a New York architectural firm that did not work out, and he made other miscalculations. Late in 2002 he basically ran out of money, although the ambitious construction project was only half-finished.

"So I mortgaged my house," explained Carlos, "and my wife's house to the hilt and even took every penny out of my son's college fund (Alex, 8). The contractors (Target Construction Co.) were so impressed that they kept working. They even helped out with the financing. I still did not have enough money to finish the project and was in real danger of losing both restaurants, my house, my wife's house and everything else I own."

It helped that Carlos is as reliable as sunshine. Thanks to his guts and persistence, the second Coyote Crossing opened on January 29 of this year. The spectacular 175-seat restaurant, with rooftop seating for another 100 in mild weather, has been beehive-busy since day one. We went there at 6 p.m. on a Sunday and had to wait 40 minutes to be seated since every table in the dining rooms and every seat at the bar was occupied.The menu is essentially identical to the one at Coyote Crossing in Conshohocken, which has won numerous "Best of Philly" and "Best of Main Line" awards. Entrees start at $15. For more information, call 610-429-8900 (West Chester) or 610-825-3000 (Conshohocken), or visit www.coyotecrossing.com