Fort Lauderdale’s iconic Carlos & Pepe’s is back — for 2 nights only — at Boca Raton pop-up dinners

Chef Carlos Pugliese had no interest in cooking another batch of ranchero sauce, not after 24 years of blissful retirement, mostly on the fairways of Boca Dunes Golf and Country Club.

But when he learned of the sudden closing of Carlos & Pepe’s — the beloved Fort Lauderdale Mexican cantina he cofounded in 1979, touching off a whirlwind, cross-country career from South Florida to California and back — Pugliese dropped his clubs and grabbed a phone.

“I called my friend Burt Rapoport and said, ‘Burt, can you believe our restaurant is closing?’” Pugliese tells the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

“And I said to him, ‘It’s heartbreaking,’ ” Rapoport, a veteran restaurateur (Max’s Grille, Deck 84), recalls in a separate interview. “So me and Carlos went out to lunch and got talking about the old days and I asked, ‘Do you still do some cooking?’ He said yes, so I said, ‘It’s summertime, not much is going on. How about we bring back Carlos & Pepe’s together?’ ”

Now Pugliese, 81, is coming out of retirement for two nights only to salute the restaurant that jump-started his career. He’ll be up to his eyeballs in cilantro, cumin and dry guajillo chiles, which flavor the savory ranchero sauce that smothers his blue crab enchiladas. It’s one of 15 Mexican entrees — spun from his 1979 book of recipes — being served during two “Carlos Returns!” pop-up dinners on Wednesday and Thursday, Aug. 28-29, at Max’s Grille in Boca Raton.

The menu will carry old favorites from Pugliese’s arsenal, from jalapeño-accented tuna dip to fried chiles rellenos to Super Nachos, Carlos & Pepe’s signature crunchy mountain of refried beans, Mexican-blend cheese, sour cream, guacamole and more jalapeños.

The event and its title — “Carlos Returns! Mexican Pop-Up” — are unrelated to Carlos & Pepe’s or its brand, which is currently owned by Richard Ehmke. Along with wife Paula Ehmke, he’s been busy shopping the restaurant to potential buyers. He said he doesn’t mind the pop-up dinners, though; if anything, he hopes they’ll build excitement for a Carlos & Pepe’s revival in Fort Lauderdale.

So far, however, the fate of Carlos & Pepe’s remains in limbo.

But not its food. With Pugliese and his trove of nostalgic recipes, the spirit of Carlos & Pepe’s lives on.

‘Nobody knew nothing here about Mexican food’

In Fort Lauderdale in 1979, blue crab enchiladas cost $6.79. Deep-fried chiles rellenos? $5.95. A humble shredded-beef taco? $1.95.

So reads the opening menu of Carlos & Pepe’s, which debuted on the 17th Street Causeway in January 1979.

But the story of Fort Lauderdale’s oldest Mexican restaurant started a decade earlier, in 1960s Los Angeles, where Salvadoran-Italian chef Carlos Pugliese — aka the “Carlos” of Carlos & Pepe’s — cooked at Chuck’s Steak House on La Cienega Boulevard. Lured to Long Beach to open a new cantina with his Mexican father-in-law, Pugliese learned to make enchiladas and moles, picked fresh cilantro and guajillo chiles at the street market. When his in-law died of cancer three years later, he returned to Chuck’s and eventually met co-owner Dave Alderman, a reclusive surfer who helped him open Muy Nachos in 1978 near the beach.

“Mexican food wasn’t popular at the time — all the tacos had ground beef,” Pugliese recalls. “So I decided to use Chuck’s quality meat [at Muy Nachos] and put filet mignon in the tacos.”

Impressed, Alderman proposed Pugliese open another Mexican cantina on Fort Lauderdale’s 17th Street Causeway, roping in two more partners — West Coaster Dennis Max and East Coaster Burt Rapoport, at the time assistant managers at chain eatery Victoria Station. Max and Rapoport quit their “well-paying, prestigious” jobs and dined for six months at “every good Mexican restaurant between Malibu and Santa Barbara,” Rapoport recalls. “And Dave said Dennis and I would get a 49% stake while Dave and Carlos would split 51%.”

The quartet picked a name: Carlos & Pepe’s. Who was Pepe exactly? “Dave Alderman made him up,” Pugliese recalls.

In Fort Lauderdale, the only competition for Mexican fare on the causeway was Taco Viva and a rising fast-food chain called Taco Bell. Which meant a lack of qualified workers, Pugliese says.

“I’m putting out the Burrito Supreme and the waiters asked me, ‘Is this the quesadilla?’ ” Pugliese says with a laugh. “We actually flew staff in from Los Angeles. Nobody knew nothing here about Mexican food, and that was so beautiful to me, because I brought it to the people.”

But a month before opening, Max and Rapoport’s partnership with Alderman fell apart, Rapoport says.

“We were butting heads,” he says. “So there we were, stranded and jobless. We drove to Key West and got drunk for three days at Sloppy Joe’s and that bar Jimmy Buffett always sang about.”

Carlos & Pepe’s pressed on without them. When it debuted in South Harbor Plaza, the cuisine, as Pugliese had predicted, struck Fort Lauderdale as so unfamiliar even media outlets struggled to define it.

“I approach an import on our shores with a sombrero full of skepticism,” wrote Sun Sentinel critic Robert Tolf on Feb. 23, 1979, in a baffling Carlos & Pepe’s review that reads like an archeologist unearthing tombs in Cairo. “Making these thin, unleavened pancakes of flour and water which are then wrapped around cheese and topped with a sour cream guacamole sauce and labeled Quesadilla… Caramba! We were overwhelmed.”

Pugliese expanded Pepe’s footprint over the following decade, opening outposts in Kendall, the Broward Mall in Plantation, Malibu, Santa Monica and Los Angeles. (All eventually closed until only the original Carlos & Pepe’s was left standing.) Max and Rapoport, meanwhile, didn’t sulk too long, rebounding with the opening of Raffles Bar and Grill at Miami’s Dadeland Mall in 1979.

“We made a million dollars in profit that first year,” Rapoport says. “I wanted to put bands in the restaurant so I asked a busboy who went to UM if he knew anybody. The next night Emilio Estefan, Jon Secada, Ed Calle, Nestor Torres and the guys from Miami Sound Machine show up. Getting fired from Carlos & Pepe’s was the best thing to happen to us. We won the lottery.”

When he left Carlos & Pepe’s in 1990, Pugliese says Rapoport and Max wanted to partner on a new Mexican cantina, Cafe Ole, on Glades Road in Boca Raton, across the street from their Italian restaurant Prezzo.

“I used a lot of those same recipes from Carlos & Pepe’s,” Pugliese says of Cafe Ole, which he eventually bought from Max and Rapoport in 1993 “at a great deal.”

“I had my own restaurant and I loved it,” Pugliese adds.

“Carlos is still talking to me, so it must have been a good deal,” Rapoport joked.

Pugliese retired at age 56 in 2000 but remained friends with Rapoport, and they often gabbed over lunch at Max’s Grille.

“It’s his passion, his integrity,” Rapoport says. “That’s what I respect. And, of course, his talent.”

Pugliese says the feeling is mutual. Which is why, when Rapoport proposed reviving the old Carlos & Pepe’s menu, he says no golf course — or retirement — would stand in his way.

“He’s a fantastic man and we’re still close,” he says. “That’s the reason I’m doing this: Burt has been such a good friend to me. He gave me great advice over the years about leases, running a business with professionalism. I learned so much.”

‘He’s a firecracker’

During a closed-to-the-public tasting last week at Max’s Grille, Pugliese is practically dancing around the kitchen.

The chef, who will expedite the kitchen during the pop-up dinners, functions as both consultant and quality control — and this day is a dry run. He peppers the staff with questions: Is the tuna dip flecked with enough jalapeños? How long does the salamander — basically a small, commercial broiler — take to melt blankets of cheese over enchiladas? How long are chiles rellenos deep-fried before hitting the plate?

“I’m going to be the filter: Food won’t go to a table if it’s not done right,” Pugliese says, beaming. “You never want people to complain — that’s why I have to be there.”

Michael Casari, Max’s Grille executive chef, can only watch with admiration.

“He’s a firecracker for 81,” says Casari, while busy stirring the enchilada mole. “I pray that when I’m his age, I can move like he does. He’s got so much excitement and his knowledge of Mexican cuisine is vast, and he’s a purist at heart. He’s not trying to reinvent the wheel but, instead, doing classic Mexican dishes with fresh flavors and simplicity.”

Seated at one of the Max’s Grille’s tables, Rapoport is giddy, too.

“We should do these dinners once a month,” he says, scooping guacamole with a tortilla chip. “It’s good, but let’s get the Haas avocados from California. They’re better but more expensive.”

Pugliese is prepared to run the kitchen as often as Rapoport will have him — even if that means sacrificing tee time at Boca Dunes.

“I don’t want to break my arm swinging the club. Anyway, I’d rather be in the kitchen,” Pugliese says. “I can’t believe I’m getting recognition again after all these years.”

IF YOU GO

WHAT: “Carlos Returns! Mexican Pop-Up” dinners

WHEN: 5-9 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday, Aug. 28-29

WHERE: Max’s Grille, 404 Plaza Real, Boca Raton

RESERVATIONS: 561-368-0080; MaxsGrille.com