Willie’s Dream...

The William Gebhardt family, like scores of other German families, settled in New Braunfels, Texas shortly after Texas gained its independence from Mexico.

In the late 1800’s, Willie owned and operated a small hole-in-the-wall cafe behind Mittendorf’s Saloon (renamed the Phoenix Saloon after a fire in 1894). He had made several trips to San Antonio, and was intrigued by the spicy food served in some of the local cafes. Mexican food became his new found love.

Willie began to experiment in his own kitchen. He bought a few herbs and peppers from a Mexican friend in San Antonio, brought them back to New Braunfels and began to concoct exotic new recipes.

He tried out his recipes on his regular customers and they came back for more. He decided to invest in his future. He wrote to Mexico and ordered a wagon-load of ancho peppers to be delivered to New Braunfels. It was the first time a Texan had ordered that quantity of peppers to be shipped across the Rio Grande.

Willie had a dream. He wasn’t content to just serve his regular customers his new recipes, even though they were beating a path to his door. He thought bigger than that. He wanted everyone to be able to enjoy chili any time they wanted.

Referred to at the time as a “genius inventor”, he found that by grinding chili pods through a small home meat grinder twice, then through a large coffee grinder, he could make a chili powder that could be put into airtight containers and sold.

Two years later, Willie Gebhardt was in San Antonio running the first commercial establishment to manufacture and sell chili powder (or ‘Tampico Dust’, as he first called it). Gebhardt’s Mexican Foods was on its way.