Hail the King: Diner still claims Edinburg royalty

EDINBURG — A pile of bills and receipts sat at the lunch counter as Jose Enrique Alejos looked over his restaurant’s books.

The 70-year-old has been part of Hamburger King, 524 E. University Drive, since he was hired as a cook in 1958. The restaurant first opened as a Dairy Queen in 1930, Alejos said, and has had its current name since 1948.

The price of a hamburger has gone up from the 15 cents they cost 52 years ago, but not much else seems to have changed. Back then, if you wanted to order a beer, you’d have to buy a burger first, Alejos said.

Red booths adorn the inside of the quaint establishment, or customers can sit up at the counter if they prefer. The diner still serves beer and a rotary pay telephone hangs on the wall.

Alejos moved up at the restaurant and the owner gave him a stake in the business 30 years ago. When she died in 1992, she left him the Hamburger King in her will.

“I cried,” Alejos said when he learned the restaurant was his. “Where do you work where anybody ever does that?”
Rosa Salas has been a waitress at the restaurant since 1990. Now 42, she said the stability and Alejos has kept her around.

“He’s a good boss,” she said.

Alejos said much of his success didn’t come as a result of the Hamburger King.

When not at the restaurant, he spent much of his time promoting boxers and managed some top talent known across the continent — including Jaime “Rocky” Balboa, a Mexican native welterweight who was ranked among the top boxers in his class in the 1980s.

Find Alejos at his restaurant among the boxing trophies (many are from his son, who practices Tae Kwon Do) and photos that adorn the walls, and he’s eager to share stories from the ring.

And while a chicken dinner may cost $5 today, rather than the 75 cents they cost in 1958, patrons today don’t have to order food if they really want a beer, Alejos said.

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Jared Taylor covers law enforcement and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4439.