As teenagers growing up in Chula Vista, Chantelle and Crystal Godinez spent a lot of time in their family restaurant, learning the ins and outs of running an eatery.
Those lessons were put to use in January 2023 when they opened their first venture, Sunday Breakfast Society, near the city’s Eastlake neighborhood.
Now, the two sisters are about to embark on their biggest project so far — Carne y Hueso, a 3,100-square-foot restaurant featuring dishes from different regions of Mexico.
“It’s a restaurant that pays homage to who we are and our traditions,” said Chantelle.
But it is more than that. It is also an opportunity for the sisters to show that women deserve to not just work in restaurants, but to own and operate them too.
Said Crystal: “This helps women realize that! We can create our own environment and our own community as well.”
The sisters have grown up in the restaurant and hospitality business, helping at their father’s restaurant, Birrieria Don Rafa in Chula Vista, which has been around 14 years and specializes in Jalisco-style birria dishes.
There, the sisters learned every job, from dishwasher to server, gaining valuable knowledge about the operations of a restaurant. Even at a young age, they learned how to work with vendors.
They were not quite sure they’d be going down that road. But after Crystal earned a Master’s degree in finance from Pepperdine University and Chantelle got a Bachelor’s degree in economics and public policy from the University of California, Riverside, the sisters knew they were ready.
“It’s definitely a tough industry. Not for the faint of heart,” said Chantelle. “Once we finished school, we were kind of drawn back to this restaurant business.”
They started with a breakfast restaurant first because they noticed they were always driving to San Diego or Little Italy to have brunch with their friends.
“We wanted to bring something to the community that we grew up in and we also saw a need,” said Chantelle.
Breakfast was always popular in their father’s restaurant and they wanted to showcase dishes like chilaquiles. The restaurant has been met by long lines and grateful customers, said the sisters.
That pushed them to open Carne y Hueso, which translates into “meat and bone” but can also be translated to connote the meaning of something being “merely human,” said the sisters.
That fits with their plan to celebrate indigenous cooking from culturally distinct regions like Puebla, Jalisco and Oaxaca. Although they are still working on the menu, Chantelle said, “We are going to be serving traditional Mexican dishes with a twist.”
Another twist is that the restaurant won’t be in the sister’s beloved South County. Instead, it is scheduled to open in North Park, on the ground floor of a renovated 1950’s era building on University Avenue.
“North Park is a community that we think will continue to grow,” said Chantelle.
Carne y Hueso will be the newest member of the growing Godinez Sisters restaurant group.
It’s been a fast rise for Chantelle, 28, and Crystal, 31.
“We’re not afraid to take risks at a young age,” said Chantelle. “We’ve taken pretty much the bull by the horn even from a young age.”
Further expansion is in the future. But for now, they’re getting ready for the opening of Carne y Hueso this Spring.
“One restaurant at a time,” said Chantelle. “Every restaurant is different. We are making sure each of our restaurants are run to our expectations. I don’t know if we’ll ever get the perfect formula.”