Back in 1985, Chris Knight was a Training Kitchen Manager for El Torito Restaurants out of Irvine, California. His responsibility was to train all new management coming to El Toritos chain of restaurants in the Northeast. He was based out of Norwood, Massachusetts. Later on in 1985 Bill Cocci, myself, was hired by El Torito to manage and was trained in all kitchen aspects of mexican food by Chris.

In short, after a couple of years, each went our own way looking for other opportunities to advance our young careers. One night after a dead-end job interview I went to eat at a restaurant, sorry but the name does not come to me right now. Well, low-and-behold, there was Chris as usual, slaving behind a hot stove. We laughed and told stories and said, "see ya, keep in touch."

A month or so later after a few more dead-end job interviews, an opportunity came up in Leominster, Mass. This was in 1992 to open a turnkey restaurant that was closed and formally a mexican restaurant. That restaurant is very well known as the Border Grille and Bar! It has been in business since we started in 1992. The folks who owned that property were very instrumental in giving us a shot in owning a business. The mission statement was simple and full of common sense:

Good food/ Good Service/ In a Clean & Friendly Environment

With the Border at the height of its success, Chris and I came upon a chinese restaurant for sale. That was in the year 2001. We jumped through all the hoops and on 9/11 (we all know what that day was), we were notified by the bank of our loan approval. But this was not a time for celebration. We just did not feel very fortunate. With so many people losing so much why should we have anything to gain? After the grieving of 9/11 the planning started. With a lot of good friends and some cash we remodeled this broken down Chinese restaurant into a destination restaurant with a colorful atmosphere serving fine food from the American Southwest and Cajun Country, South Side Grille & Margarita Factory keeping the same concept of the Border:

Good food/ Good Service/ In a Clean & Friendly Environment

To go back about 8 years, when our sales started to climb, we went from 20 employees to about 60 at the Border. During this time, we knew to keep it running successfully, we needed more experience in our kitchen. So we hired Jim Kennedy (aka JK) who worked with Chris and me back at El Toritos. JK is a man with years of kitchen and management experience and adds a whole lot of flavor to the food and restaurant in general. We are so lucky to have JK and his experience, which is a big contributor to our success. As is all the management staff and hourly employees, some who have been with us since Day One.

Chris and I and our team invite you to experience our full-flavored restaurants. Check out the menu on this web site. I believe you will find it to be very unique and flavorful!