New Hampshire
About five percent of NH restaurants are Mexican. One Manchester spot aims to be a place for everyone.
Jose Garcia used to work in the fields as a kid in Zacatecas in northern Mexico. Looking for new horizons, he immigrated to Texas 22 years ago. There he found a community of young people like him.
“There was a lot of music and places to go to dance,” he said. “But there weren’t many jobs.”
He ventured to the northeast looking to open a restaurant that could mimic the festive ambiance he found in the immigrant community in Texas. Garcia also dreamed of offering real Mexican food. He has nothing against Tex-Mex tacos, but he says the real flavors of Mexico are unbeatable.
Once in New Hampshire, he found a more affordable place to live but with a much smaller Latino community. For years he had to work in a foundry, barely making ends meet.
His Dominican wife encouraged him to pursue his dream. They opened Begy’s Taqueria in Manchester a few years ago. They met on the dance floor in Nashua, and now they swing in the kitchen to the sound of the jukebox, preparing tacos that are hard to find in other places.
Tripe and other beef offal are served in warm corn or flour tortillas, topped with onions, fresh cilantro, radishes, cucumber, salsa, and a hint of lemon; a perfect balance of spicy and citrus. Garcia says the flavors are like going on a trip to Zacatecas, his hometown.
Garcia’s shop is one of the 155 Mexican restaurants open in New Hampshire; more than a third are in Hillsborough County, which has a larger Mexican community than other parts of the state, according to Census data. A recent Pew Research Center survey based on data from Safegraph, and Yelp reviews said Mexican restaurants make up roughly 5% of restaurants in New Hampshire, but nationally comprised 10% of the total of restaurants.
Compared with other New England states, New Hampshire has the second lowest number of Mexican restaurants, while Massachusetts and Maine have the highest concentration.
Garcia also sells more traditional taco options, like pastor, chorizo or asada, for those who do not venture into the specialties. David Frechette, a client, is a fan of steak tacos, he usually orders a half dozen
“It’s one of the best places in town,” he said.
The taco shop location was once a Bosnian restaurant. When Garcia rented it, the landlord asked him to please keep the name Begy’s, which is his last name. That anecdote encapsulates Garcia’s goal to make his restaurant a place for everyone, including U.S.-born residents and the growing immigrant community in his neighborhood who perhaps have never tried a taco before.
“That is essential for me,” he said. “People from Africa eating my tacos – that is amazing!”
Garcia says since there aren’t many Mexican restaurants in the state, some business owners have difficulties finding food suppliers or where to buy more affordable products.
“If I were a bad person I would not tell them where to find tortillas, and I would let them buy them very expensive,” he said. “But no, we get along like friends.”
There aren’t many Latin American restaurants in New Hampshire either, only 38 restaurants across the state serve Hispanic food from places like El Salvador, Colombia, or Puerto Rico, according to data from the Pew Research Center analysis.
Maine and Vermont have the fewest Latin American restaurants in New England, with 28 and 12 respectively.
Garcia shares his experience with people who want to open a restaurant because for him it’s all about elevating the value of Latino restaurants and diversifying the Granite State restaurant scene.
“They may become my competition, [but] we have to support each other,” Garcia said.
The son of Cher is scheduled to be in court Wednesday for a hearing over allegations he broke into a New Hampshire home earlier this month.
It was the second arrest in a matter of days for Elijah Allman, 49, of Malibu, California, who was detained Feb. 27 after allegedly acting belligerently at a prestigious prep school in New Hampshire. It was unclear if Allman had any connection to either St. Paul’s School or the home in Windham, New Hampshire.
Allman remains in the Rockingham County Department of Corrections in what is called preventive detention, Superintendent Jonathan Banville said.
Allman, whose father was the late singer Gregg Allman, faces two counts of criminal mischief, one count of burglary and a count of breach of bail for breaking into the home on March 1. Police said in a report that Allman did not have permission to be at the home and forcibly entered it .
In the incident at the prep school, Allman was charged with four misdemeanors: two counts of simple assault, criminal trespass and criminal threatening. Allman was also charged with a violation of disorderly conduct, which is illegal in the state but not considered a crime.
At about 7 p.m. that day, Concord police responded to reports that Allman was disturbing people in the dining hall of St. Paul’s School. After charging Allman, police said he was released on bail as his case works through the court system.
Allman did not respond to an email requesting comment, and a phone number for him was not working. It was unclear from the court records if Allman has an attorney.
In December 2023, Cher filed a petition to become a temporary conservator overseeing her son’s money, saying Allman struggles with mental health issues and addiction have left him unable to manage his assets and potentially put his life in danger.
The petition from the singer and actress said Elijah Allman is entitled to regular payments from a trust fund. But “given his ongoing mental health and substance abuse issues,” she is “concerned that any funds distributed to Elijah will be immediately spent on drugs, leaving Elijah with no assets to provide for himself and putting Elijah’s life at risk,” the petition says.
A few weeks later, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jessica Uzcategui denied the request, saying she was not convinced that a conservatorship was urgently needed. Allman was in the courtroom with his his attorneys, who acknowledged his previous struggles but argued that he is in a good place now, attending meetings, getting treatment and reconciling with his previously estranged wife.
New Hampshire
Possible 2028 Democratic White House contenders weigh in on Iran with New Hampshire voters
As the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran overtakes the foreign policy debate in Washington, two Democratic governors with potential 2028 presidential aspirations — Gavin Newsom and Andy Beshear — recently traveled to New Hampshire, introducing themselves to the state’s famously engaged voters. The two weighed in on the war and both criticized and questioned President Trump’s strategy and endgame.
“If a president is going to take a country into war, and risk the lives of American troops and Americans in the region, he has to have a real justification and not one that seems to change every five to 10 hours,” Beshear told CBS News after a Democratic fundraiser in Keene.
“This President seems to use force before ever trying diplomacy, and he has a duty to sell it to the American people and to address Congress with it,” Beshear continued. “He hasn’t done any of that. In fact, it appears there isn’t even a plan for what success looks like. He’s gone from regime change to strategic objectives and now is talking about unconditional surrender, which isn’t realistic where he is.”
Beshear also said he thought that Congress should have reined in Mr. Trump’s war powers.
“He is trying to ignore Congress. He’s trying to even ignore the American people,” Beshear said.
He went on to note that the president’s State of the Union address took place “three — four days before he launched this attack,” and Mr. Trump “didn’t even have the respect to tell the American people the threat that he thought Iran posed to us.”
Last week, both the House and the Senate failed to pass resolutions to limit Mr. Trump’s war powers and stop him from taking further military action against Iran without congressional support.
For Newsom, the war with Iran constitutes part of a broader criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
At an event last Tuesday in Los Angeles, Newsom had compared Israel to an “apartheid state.” Later, in New Hampshire, he sought to clarify his comment.
“I was specifically referring to a Tom Friedman [New York Times] column last week, where Tom used that word of apartheid as it relates to the direction Bibi is going, particularly on the annexation of the West Bank,” Newsom explained during a book tour event Thursday night in Portsmouth. “I’m very angry, with what he is doing and why he’s doing it, what he’s going to ultimately try to do to the Supreme Court there, what he’s trying to do to save his own political career.”
Friedman wrote that at the same time that the U.S. and Israel are prosecuting a war in Iran, within Israel, Netanyahu’s government has undertaken efforts to annex the West Bank, driving Palestinians from their homes; fire the attorney general who is leading the prosecution against Netanyahu for corruption; and block the government’s attempt to establish a commission to examine the failures that led up to the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Jews by Hamas.
CBS News has reached out to the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., for comment.
On Iran, Newsom said, “I’m very angry about this war, with all due respect, you know, not because I’m angry the supreme leader is dead. Quite the contrary. I’m not naive about the last 37 years of his reign. Forty-seven years since ’79 — the revolution,” Newsom said. “But I’m also mindful that you have a president who still is inarticulate and incapable of giving us the rationale of why? Why now? What’s the endgame?”
Many attendees at Newsom’s book event said that the situation in Iran is a top-of-mind issue for them, too. Some said they’re “horrified” by what is happening.
29-year-old Alicia Marr told CBS News she decided to attend Newsom’s event because of his social media response to the war with Iran.
“There was one spot left, and I decided to pick it up, and it was due to his response to the war, that it is just unacceptable, and I would agree with that,” Marr said.
While some voters like Marr are eager to hear about where potential candidates stand on foreign policy, many at Newsom’s event said they care most about how potential candidates plan to address domestic issues.
“I’m more focused on getting the middle class back on track and fighting the oligarchy, and I’m less invested in international issues,” said Anita Alden, who also attended Newsom’s event,
“I wouldn’t call myself America first, but we have so many problems at home that are my priority,” she told CBS News.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who may also be weighing another White House bid, told Fox 2 Detroit last week that she “unequivocally opposes” the Trump administration’s military action in Iran and urged Congress to take action.
“If we want to stop Donald Trump with this random decision that he has arrived at, then Congress must act, and Congress must act immediately. The American people do not want our sons and daughters to go into this unauthorized war of choice,” Harris said.
Mr. Trump has lashed out against Democrats who have pushed back on his Iran strategy, calling them “losers” last week and arguing that they would criticize any decision he made on Iran.
“If I did it, it’s no good. If I didn’t do it, they would have said the opposite, that you should have done this,” the president said.
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