Sisters reflect on 20 years of restaurant ownership

link Yvonne Braziel (left) and her sister Yvette Braziel-Peacock pose by the wine rack in the dining room of Del’s Restaurant. They bought Del’s from their mother 20 years ago, and now own three restaurants on Historic Route 66 in Tucumcari.

QCS Senior Writer

It started with a shared desire to be their own bosses and build a successful business in Tucumcari, and with no working capital they got in over their heads but emerged 20 years later with three signature restaurants along Route 66 in Tucumcari.

Sisters Yvonne Braziel and Yvette Braziel-Peacock were so busy overseeing the operation of Dels', Rocking Y's and Kix on 66 restaurants they missed the 20th anniversary of the purchase of their flagship restaurant, Del’s, which they bought from their mother on Jan. 9, 1995.

“The restaurant was being leased at the time, and the lessor was wanting out of the contract,” Braziel said, “so after much thought my sister and I decided to buy the business outright.”

She added, “We had no idea what we had gotten ourselves into.”

Braziel-Peacock said there may not have been a worse time to open a restaurant in Tucumcari than in January. She said there was no business for the first few days.

“We even started calling our friends and asking them to come eat at the restaurant,” Braziel-Peacock said.

Braziel said they started out with seven employees, including themselves, and this meant that they too, were cooking, washing dishes, bussing tables and waiting tables. She said their work also included maintenance of the building, plumbing, roof repairs and general upkeep.

“What ever it took we dove right into the chaos with the help of our employees,” Braziel said.

Braziel-Peacock said business was still slow after a few months, so they decided to open the restaurant for breakfast. She said while this helped to pick up business, it also added to the already staggering workload for the sisters and their employees.

Braziel said along with being involved with the daily operations, they were also the business's promoters, bookkeepers, managers and bosses. Eventually, finding competent management allowed the sisters to ease out of some of the daily grind and focus on business growth and development.

“There was no help or guidance for us when we started out,” Braziel said. “There was no one we could turn to for advice in that field. We were it. All of our chances for success were placed on our own minds and efforts.”

After several years of growth from serving menu staples, including their chicken-fried steak, Mexican food dishes and several other unique entrees, they decided in August 2004 to purchase a building on Route 66 that once housed a Denny's restaurant.

Work began on a second restaurant that would later be dubbed “Kix on 66.” Having halted breakfast at Dels, the sisters decided to make the new restaurant their official breakfast outlet.

“Kix literally had to be built from the ground up,” Braziel-Peacock said. “The entire building needed work, including the replacing of all the 2-by-4 studs in the walls.”

Along with breakfast and lunch dishes Kix began serving specialized coffee drinks, including espresso and iced coffee. The latest feature at Kix is to convert the patio area along Route 66 into a “Pet-io” where pets on leashes can join patrons as they dine.

In May 2009, the sisters bought another restaurant set on a desirable location, where Route 66 meets U.S. Highway 54, close to Interstate 40. This newest restaurant is called Rockin' Y's and features signature burgers and barbecue.

Braziel-Peacock said while each restaurant has its own unique variety of dining choices, she would like to make each restaurant more diverse.

“These are our recipes that are served at all three of the restaurants. They came from us,” Braziel-Peacock said. “We have taught all the cooks how to prepare each item.”

Braziel-Peacock said all of their dishes began as experiments, either starting from their own base recipes or from scratch.

“Making and refining the menus for all three restaurants was and continues to be one of the hardest parts of our jobs,” Braziel-Peacock.

Braziel said another area that takes a lot of time and work is the continued promotion of the three restaurants to U.S. and international tourists who travel through Tucumcari.

“It takes a lot of work and money to get your name out there for people to see and entice them to stop in for a bite as they pass through Tucumcari,” she said, whether they travel Route 66, U.S. Highway 54 or I-40.

Their promotional efforts aim at business travelers and vacationers, especially enthusiasts of “The Mother Road,” on nostalgic tours of Route 66.

So what advice would the sisters give to themselves if they could travel back 20 years? What would they do differently if they could go back to the time before they opened three restaurants, won awards for their signature salsa, before they served countless meals to locals, travelers, celebrities like Paul McCartney, hometown icons like Lynn Moncus and legions of Route 66 nostalgia buffs?

“Maybe I'd tell us to stick with just the one restaurant,” Braziel said with a grin. “Could of made a lot more money and had less stress operating and improving one franchise as opposed to three. Who knows we may have been able to retire by now.”

Of the future, Braziel-Peacock said, “Hold on, its going to be a rough ride with lots of obstacles.”