Martha was, however, nobody’s fool, her daughter says. One day he was walking by Martha’s house and thought it looked a little shabby. A skilled carpenter, he has worked on Casa Sanchez’s roof and done repairs around the restaurant for years. Hernan, she says, is a fellow parishioner at St. Marta gestures to Victor Hernan, who is sitting at a table alone, sipping on a drink. “She served the wealthy and the homeless in the same manner.” She was known in the neighborhood as a person who lent money and gave food, advice and support to anyone who needed it, often without being asked. On the wall, a frieze of Polaroids shows her triumphant in front of different slot machines, like a hunter with fresh kill.Īlso legendary, however, was Martha’s generosity. The months from August to October of 2000, when Martha won more than $36,000 at various slot machines, are family legend. Martha displayed a way with money beyond her business ventures. Martha decided to go into salsa, and Casa Sanchez became the first packaged salsa sold at Safeway. In the 1970s, a price war between tortilla manufacturers threatened the business. Instead, she preferred the business side of things. “But it wasn’t long before he was working for her.”Īlthough Martha would go on to have several successful businesses in the food industry, including a deli in Noe Valley, a Mexican bakery and store in the Excelsior, and a restaurant, she didn’t like to cook, her daughter says. “Originally, he was her supervisor,” says Sanchez’s daughter. It was there that she met her husband, Robert Sanchez, whose parents happened to own the business.
Martha came to San Francisco in 1950, at the age of 21, and found a job making tortillas in a small storefront on Fillmore Street.
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