Formerly: Mesilla Restaurant (1939; early working name)
Mesilla, New Mexico · Founded 1939 · Building: compound developed from the 1840s through the late nineteenth century
A family-run Mesilla restaurant founded in 1939 by 25-year-old Katy Griggs Camuñez inside an 1840s adobe compound, credited with starting the Southwest's free chips-and-salsa tradition.
La Posta de Mesilla began in 1939 when 25-year-old Katy Griggs Camuñez opened a four-table chile restaurant in a historic adobe compound on Mesilla Plaza. Her uncle, Edgar Griggs, sold her the property for one dollar, love, and affection. The compound's earliest buildings date to the 1840s and later housed businesses including the Corn Exchange Hotel. Jerean Camuñez Hutchinson, Katy's great-niece, and her husband Thomas “Hutch” Hutchinson bought La Posta in 1996 and continue to operate it.
The earliest portion of the La Posta compound was constructed in the 1840s on Mesilla Plaza.
Source: National Trust for Historic Preservation, “Sprucing Up a Beloved New Mexico Restaurant,” January 31, 2022; Las Cruces Bulletin, “Katy Camunez: Put Mesilla on the Map,” March 27, 2025
The compound was expanded and used for changing commercial purposes during the nineteenth century, including freight, lodging, retail, and hotel uses.
Source: National Trust for Historic Preservation, “Sprucing Up a Beloved New Mexico Restaurant,” January 31, 2022
La Posta's own history states that Mesilla Plaza hosted a ceremony recognizing the Gadsden Purchase, and that the compound later occupied part of the plaza-side historic property. This event is independently well documented as a Mesilla Plaza occurrence; the compound's specific role in it is sourced only to the restaurant's own account.
Source: La Posta de Mesilla history page (uncorroborated by independent source for the compound's specific role)
The Corn Exchange Hotel operated from the compound during the 1870s and 1880s, according to La Posta's history and later Mesilla accounts.
Source: Las Cruces Bulletin, “Katy Camunez: Put Mesilla on the Map,” March 27, 2025; La Posta de Mesilla history page
Twenty-five-year-old Katy Griggs Camuñez opened her small restaurant in the compound with four tables, dirt floors, no running water, and cooking help from her mother and grandmother. Her uncle, Edgar Griggs, sold her the property for one dollar, love, and affection.
Source: National Trust for Historic Preservation, “Sprucing Up a Beloved New Mexico Restaurant,” January 31, 2022; Albuquerque Journal, “La Posta de Mesilla celebrates 85 years,” October 5, 2024
The new restaurant was initially known as Mesilla Restaurant; Camuñez later ran a local newspaper naming contest that produced the name La Posta de Mesilla.
Source: New Mexico Magazine, “¡Felicidades!,” September 7, 2021
Katy Camuñez began serving a free bowl of tostadas and chile to arriving guests, a practice regional food writers credit as the origin of the free chips-and-salsa custom now standard across the Southwest.
Source: National Trust for Historic Preservation, “Sprucing Up a Beloved New Mexico Restaurant,” January 31, 2022; Las Cruces Bulletin, March 27, 2025
Katy Griggs Camuñez died after running La Posta for over five decades, working the kitchen and greeting guests until her death.
Source: National Trust for Historic Preservation, “Sprucing Up a Beloved New Mexico Restaurant,” January 31, 2022; Las Cruces Bulletin, March 27, 2025
Jerean Camuñez Hutchinson and Thomas “Hutch” Hutchinson purchased La Posta and moved back to the Mesilla area to operate it with their children.
Source: National Trust for Historic Preservation, “Sprucing Up a Beloved New Mexico Restaurant,” January 31, 2022
The United States Navy named the galley aboard USS New Mexico “La Posta Abajo de Mar,” honoring Katy Griggs Camuñez and the restaurant.
Source: Visit Las Cruces, “Historic Mesilla, New Mexico”
The National Trust for Historic Preservation documented a preservation project that repaired and recoated the compound's adobe walls.
Source: National Trust for Historic Preservation, “Sprucing Up a Beloved New Mexico Restaurant,” January 31, 2022
La Posta marked 85 years of operation; the Albuquerque Journal reported that the restaurant had expanded from Katy's original room to a compound of multiple historic buildings.
Source: Albuquerque Journal, “La Posta de Mesilla celebrates 85 years,” October 5, 2024
Every claim gets rated. A business's own website can never earn "documented."
The present restaurant began in 1939, when Katy Griggs Camuñez opened a small chile restaurant. The compound itself dates to the 1840s and had earlier commercial, lodging, and hotel uses, but those are separate businesses from La Posta.
La Posta's own history says the compound became an important Butterfield Stagecoach stop after the Civil War. The Butterfield Overland Mail route ceased operation in 1861, during the Civil War, so it could not have become a Butterfield stop after the war ended in 1865. This research did not locate a primary station record proving the compound served as a Butterfield stop during the route's 1858–61 operation either.
The claim appears in La Posta's own historical narrative and is repeated by later tourism accounts. This research did not locate freight records, advertisements, newspaper notices, land records, or other independent evidence connecting either Bean brother to this particular compound.
The restaurant's timeline names these figures as Corn Exchange patrons, and ghost-tour material repeats some of the stories. This research located no guest register, diary, letter, newspaper account, military record, photograph, or other source establishing visits by the named figures.
DesertUSA and Las Cruces ghost-tour coverage document a longstanding haunted reputation based on employee and visitor reports. This research did not locate a named paranormal investigation team, aired episode, published evidence review, or independently corroborated evidence establishing paranormal activity.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation reports that Jerean Camuñez Hutchinson, Katy Griggs Camuñez's great-niece, and Thomas Hutchinson purchased and have owned and operated La Posta since 1996. The Albuquerque Journal's 2024 anniversary coverage also describes the family connection and continuing operation.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Las Cruces Bulletin both credit Camuñez with beginning the practice at La Posta in 1939. This research did not locate a comprehensive regional food-history survey independently ranking La Posta as the specific origin point ahead of any other Southwestern restaurant serving a similar custom in the same era, so the claim is treated as plausible rather than fully documented.
This specific detail is repeated in regional retrospective coverage of Camuñez's life and the restaurant's founding. This research did not locate the underlying property deed or transfer record itself, though the phrase and transaction are consistent across independent tellings.
La Posta is an 1840s restaurant or has operated continuously as the same business since the frontier era.
The compound began in the 1840s, but La Posta restaurant began in 1939. The property had earlier uses, including hotel and commercial activities, but these were not the modern restaurant business.
Source: National Trust for Historic Preservation, January 31, 2022; Albuquerque Journal, October 5, 2024
The compound became a Butterfield Stagecoach stop after the Civil War.
The Butterfield Overland Mail route ended in 1861, during the Civil War, which itself did not end until 1865. The claim's chronology is impossible as stated, and this research did not locate a primary record establishing the compound as a Butterfield station before 1861 either.
Source: La Posta de Mesilla history page; National Park Service Butterfield Overland Mail history; no station record found
Kit Carson, Billy the Kid, Pancho Villa, and Ulysses S. Grant are documented former guests of the Corn Exchange Hotel.
The restaurant repeats those names, but this research did not locate independent documentary evidence that any of them visited the compound.
Source: La Posta de Mesilla timeline; no primary source found
La Posta survives because it treated the historic compound as a growing family environment rather than a preserved room frozen in time. Katy Camuñez built a restaurant identity around family recipes, hospitality, birds, collections, and a sequence of rooms accumulated across the compound. She is also credited with starting a regional culinary habit, the free bowl of tostadas and chile served to arriving guests, that later became a Southwest-wide standard. Jerean and Hutchinson continued that approach after purchasing the restaurant in 1996, preserving the old adobe fabric while allowing the business to evolve. The result is continuity of family stewardship and restaurant culture, not an uninterrupted nineteenth-century hotel or stagecoach business.
La Posta de Mesilla opened on September 16, 1939, when 25-year-old Katy Griggs Camuñez started a four-table restaurant in the historic Mesilla compound. The National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Albuquerque Journal both document the 1939 founding.
La Posta occupies a compound whose earliest buildings date to the 1840s. The restaurant itself dates to 1939, and the compound grew through nineteenth-century additions rather than being one single 1840 building.
Jerean Camuñez Hutchinson and her husband, Thomas “Hutch” Hutchinson, are the current owners identified by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Jerean is Katy Griggs Camuñez's great-niece, and the couple bought La Posta in 1996.
La Posta's history says the compound was a Butterfield Stagecoach stop, but this research did not locate a station record proving that use. The restaurant's claim that the stop became important after the Civil War cannot be correct because the Butterfield Overland Mail route ended in 1861, before the war's end in 1865.
La Posta's historical timeline says Billy the Kid and Pancho Villa were patrons of the earlier Corn Exchange Hotel in the compound. This research found no guest register, newspaper account, diary, letter, photograph, or other independent record confirming either visit.
La Posta has a longstanding haunted reputation based on reports of moving objects, strange smells, cold spots, and frightened birds. DesertUSA and Las Cruces ghost-tour material report those stories, but this research found no qualifying paranormal investigation or independently corroborated evidence.
La Posta didn't invent tortilla chips or salsa individually, but Katy Griggs Camuñez is credited with starting the practice of serving a free bowl of tostadas and chile to arriving guests at her restaurant in 1939, a custom regional food writers connect to the free chips-and-salsa tradition now standard across the Southwest.
According to regional retrospective coverage, Katy Camuñez's uncle, Edgar Griggs, sold her the property for one dollar, love, and affection in 1939, when she was 25 years old.
2410 Calle de San Albino, Mesilla, NM 88046
(575) 524-3524
Allow time to walk through the connected historic rooms and courtyard. The restaurant's 1939 family history is well supported; treat frontier celebrity and stagecoach stories as leads for further research.