Casa Bonita celebrates 30 years as a Vashon institution

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, June 2, 2026

Pop quiz: Which of Vashon’s restaurants has been under continuous ownership by the same family the longest? If you said Casa Bonita, the Mexican restaurant on 100th Avenue SW, treat yourself to a margarita.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of this popular Vashon institution, which opened its doors on Sept. 12, 1996.

The family is also working on its latest venture, Casa Bonita Express, in the small corner space in the IGA parking lot. It will feature a takeout menu, though it’s not yet clear when it will open. “We’re working our way through the health department permit process,” Sahagún said.

The new venture comes three decades after Sahagún and his family first came to Vashon with a much simpler goal: finding a place to open a restaurant.

A family restaurant takes root

In the mid-1990s, Jose Sahagún and his family were searching for the right place to open a restaurant when someone pointed them toward Vashon.

“I really liked the island,” he said, “so I kept coming back here to check out places for sale.”

On one of his scouting trips, he discovered an existing Mexican restaurant named La Fiesta de la Isla, run by a man named Bernie McDoug, and he walked in, “mostly to see how the food was.”

He really liked the size and layout of the property, so he gave McDoug his card and asked that he contact him if he ever decided to sell.

“Five or six months later, he called me,” Sahagún said. “He told me that things weren’t really working out, and asked if I was still interested.”

Sahagún bought the restaurant and renamed it Casa Bonita, or “beautiful house.” Luckily, it needed almost no structural changes.

The family — Sahagún, his mother, two brothers and a cousin — ran the place and created their own menu; his father, Jose Sahagún Sr., was the original chef.

“It was different in those days,” Sahagún said. “It was much harder to get fresh ingredients like peppers and even dry spices, so we had to make do with what we could get. Plus, people’s tolerance for and enjoyment of spicy food were not what they are today.”

It took a year or so for the restaurant to become established.

“People just assumed that it was the same restaurant it had been before,” he said. “It was difficult to get the word out and make people aware of the change.”

The family came from Jalisco, Mexico, and moved to the U.S. in 1990, when Jose was 14. They picked Washington state because they had family connections here. Every three months or so, he returns to Jalisco, where he still has many relatives.

“So many cousins,” he joked. “I have no idea how many there are.”

Between these trips, he works seven days a week, cooking and prepping in the morning, then discussing with the staff at the end of the evening what changes they’ll make for the next day.

Island support

Sahagún expressed great appreciation for the Vashon community, which he said has been very supportive of the restaurant and his family — including years ago, when some local kids broke into a storage room next to the building, stole some beer and set fire to the place.

The fire department came quickly and averted what could have been a disaster for the restaurant, which was forced to close for three weeks, he said.

The community stepped up to help, providing temporary jobs to the restaurant workers while the damage was repaired.

He noted that the perpetrators were caught: “They left their fingerprints all over beer kegs.”

That same sense of community shapes how Sahagún runs the restaurant today. He tries to keep prices reasonable, and the chef’s specials sometimes reflect whatever ingredients happen to be on sale at the time.

When asked why he doesn’t offer lamb shank all the time — a popular dish that Casa Bonita does wonderfully well — he said it’s often just too expensive to make.

“We try to keep dishes under $30,” he said, while promising that this one will reappear on the menu periodically.

What does he like to eat? He laughed. “I don’t have one favorite dish. I usually pick different items and put them on my plate. And I’m a big steak guy.”

For the restaurant’s 30th anniversary in September, Sahagún has plans to celebrate and show his appreciation for Vashon. They’ll be doing some specials, and giving away T-shirts and items imported from Mexico as a thank you to islanders for all the support they’ve given the family over the years.

On the way out, Sahagún pointed to a framed certificate on the wall issued by the Vashon-Maury Island Chamber of Commerce. It declares Sept. 12, 2008, as “Casa Bonita Day,” and celebrates “12 years as Vashon’s oldest restaurant under the same ownership.”

And now it’s 30 years. Sahagún smiled. “Maybe we’ll get a new certificate this year,” he said.

Phil Clapham is a retired whale biologist and writer who lives on Maury Island.