Best of Flagstaff 2024
Written by Gail G. Collins
When you have been serving breakfast since 2001, you can forget you are also a Mexican restaurant, confessed Tina Martinez, owner of MartAnne’s Burrito Palace. After winning Best Breakfast multiple times, though the humble and happy crew doesn’t tack up their successes on the wall, they claimed the top Mexican spot. “We’re honored. It wasn’t on our radar. It took us 10 years to change our customers’ perspectives to consider us a Mexican restaurant,” she said. So, it feels pretty good.
MartAnne’s, “The House that Chilaquiles Built,” was founded on chips, sauce and eggs—Mexican comfort food leftovers served as breakfast. The institution on Route 66 in downtown flaunts fiesta fun in raspberry, ochre and cotton candy blue walls with whimsical palace décor in a riot of feathers, flowers and Emma Gardner’s skeleton art. Still, behind every institution, there is a history, and Tina reminisced.
The restaurant began in the early 80s under Gloria Martan Korkki, who sold it and bought it back twice before the transfer stuck with Anne Martinez in 2001. It has always been a family endeavor, and Miss Alice always came with the kitchen and a lot of experience. Gloria hatched the chilaquiles idea, but thought the food was too weird, too Mexican or too unknown, but did it anyway. “It was on the menu, and it became the hit,” Tina said with a laugh.
When her mother Anne took over, Tina worked as a server. The awning needed replacement, and the seller wanted a name to put on it. It had been Martan’s, so Tina suggested a tweak, adding “Anne,” so retaining the legacy and personalizing it.
Read more: Voted Best Breakfast, Best Mexican & Best Waitstaff: MartAnne’s Burrito Palace celebrates its journeyIn 2012, Tina, a driving force and visionary, took over MartAnne’s operations. “I moved from the shop around the corner to a new location, obtained a liquor license and expanded the space and menu.” Then, she admitted, “Our menu—we have too much on it, and we think that’s funny—but we want to have specials, even though our dishes are better than any special we could come up with.”
Perhaps, but an example they are equally good is the red chili beef tamale benedict with additional beef filling, topped with hollandaise sauce. “It’s been on our specials menu for five years!”
MartAnne’s isn’t one to follow trends. Mostly, they set them, but when they finally acquiesce, they do it right, like the quesabirria tacos that became a top seller. “They are the best in the state,” Tina said.
Sauces are from scratch, and they go above and beyond to source items they prefer. Many dishes are influenced by customers, even bearing their names. MartAnne’s offers traditional items, like huevos rancheros, but other dishes, like JB’s Volcano—a mini mountain of chilaquiles, covered with pork green chile, chorizo and sour cream, served with an over medium egg—can’t be found on a menu anywhere else. Another example is the Jerry el Mujeriego, a spicy, pork, green chile and cheese enchilada with sour cream and cilantro, topped with two eggs over medium.
Some items are seasonal, like the pumpkin pancakes, topped with a scoop of sweet cream cheese. “It has a following, and in July, people begin asking if we’ll bring it back again.” Of course, they do.
Other places might consider the whacky combinations inauthentic—there is too much sauce or the posole is green—but it’s MartAnne’s version of Mexican food.
“My husband is from Sonora, and he loves it all,” Tina said. “Grandmas cook in their kitchen differently, and we feel no one is right.”
MartAnne’s is known for its music, keeping it lively and atypical during the day with Sinatra, Ozzy Osbourne, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young or Etta James. A different night vibe takes over with Spanish guitar and salsa.
The restaurant is as likely to have local customers ordering as tourists. Regulars eat there two or three times a week, and staff knows their needs.
“MartAnne’s is a combination, a collection of multiple women cooks and races, who for one reason or another cooked or worked here,” Tina explained. “Anne took the original menu, spiced it up and made sure every dish was the best it could be. Emma Gardner is part of that collection, a server, who brought color and her skeleton art. We want to remain MartAnne’s—that melting pot of influences of family and cooks. Our style is Flagstaff style.” BestofFLG24
April 2014
The incredible, edible egg is all it’s cracked up to be. The nutrient-packed ovum delivers dense protein for a measly 70 calories. And while it’s high in nutrition, it’s low in cost. Each year in the U.S., 75 billion eggs are laid, and well over half are used by consumers. The egg is a versatile food, and it’s been said that the many pleats of a chef’s toque represent the many ways an egg can be prepared. Scrambled, fried, poached, baked and soft or hard boiled. For Easter, they are dyed every shade of spring, and those hard-boiled pretties become egg salad, deviled eggs and more. 
This month, MartAnne’s Breakfast Palace celebrates a dozen years of serving chilaquiles to a salsa-slurping, chorizo-crazed, egg-static group of diehards. A sign at the restaurant’s entrance states the obvious result: The House That Chilaquiles Built.