In December 2015, a family entered the Indio International Tamale Festival for the first time. Their booth was number 437, and it carried the name "Silvia's Tamales." When the judging ended, The Desert Sun reported that the booth had won Best Overall Tamale.
Silvia Rendon's family now cooks from a small storefront at 47875 Caleo Bay, Suite A106, in La Quinta. The restaurant is called Casa de Silvia. It was open by late August, when the Coachella Valley Independent listed it in late August as "an award-winning tamale purveyor that at one time had a location in Indio." It describes itself as a handmade Mexican brunch spot, and that is what the menu delivers most days of the year. The tamales are still what holds the business together, though, and the next five weeks are when that shows.
A Decade of Tamales Before Any Dining Room
The family sold tamales for years before they had a room with tables in it. According to the Los Angeles Times, Rendon sold tamales outside a Food 4 Less for more than a decade. In The Desert Sun's 2017 account, her son Isauro Meza remembered a batch so large that she shared it with the neighbors. Their response gave the family the idea for a catering business.
The festival win came next. "I think that's when they gained the confidence to share their food with people," Meza told The Desert Sun. Each step after that was built on the tamales:
- 2015: "Silvia's Tamales" wins Best Overall Tamale at the Indio International Tamale Festival in its first year of competing.
- Early 2017: Casa de Silvia opens in Indio as a takeout counter.
- July 2017: The sit-down restaurant celebrates its grand opening, with tamales in chicken, pork, cheese or pineapple at $2.50 each.
- 2018: Coachella Valley Weekly profiles the family-owned restaurant, by then a full-service eatery that grew out of the catering business.
- 2022: Coachella Magazine reports a first-place finish in the festival's gourmet tamale category. Its everyday tamales are pork, chicken and cheese, and festival-only varieties include chile relleno, strawberry and pineapple.
- August 2026: The restaurant is open at Caleo Bay in La Quinta.
Those Indio prices and festival varieties belong to the restaurant's history. The La Quinta menu has its own items and prices.
What the La Quinta Menu Kept
At Caleo Bay, brunch leads and the tamales come on a plate. Palm Springs Life included the restaurant in its October 6 roundup of new openings. It described an order-at-the-counter spot that makes fresh salsa every morning and its own masa, and it recommended the chilaquiles with a house horchata.
Here is how the current menu is priced:
| Dish | What arrives | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Chilaquiles Rojos or Verdes | House salsa roja or salsa verde, with house beans, crema, cheeses and one egg | $20 |
| Chilaquiles Chipotle | Smoky chipotle salsa | $22 |
| Chilaquiles Divorciados or Divorciados Clásico | Red and green salsa | $22 |
| Divorciados Especiales | Choice of two: rojo, verde or chipotle | $24 |
| De Colores | One cheese tamale and one pork tamale with red and green salsa, crema, cheese and beans | $20 |
| La Silvia | Bistec ranchero, potatoes, two eggs, beans and handmade tortillas | $30 |
| Breakfast burrito | Bacon or chorizo | $18 |
| Pan dulce French toast | With fruit and condensed milk | $20 |
The De Colores plate matters most here. It puts the restaurant's two everyday fillings, cheese and pork, side by side under both salsas, and pork and cheese were already the usual tamales in 2022, per Coachella Magazine. The La Silvia plate carries the owner's name and, at $30, is the most substantial dish on the menu. Chilaquiles were a highlight of the Indio breakfast menu in 2017, and Palm Springs Life recommended them again this fall.
How the Counter Runs
Casa de Silvia keeps short hours and takes no reservations. The restaurant's website lists these terms:
- Hours: Thursday through Tuesday, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
- Closed: Wednesday, which the site calls a "day of rest."
- Seating: Walk-in only, with no host stand and no reservation line.
- Phone: (760) 899-3765, for questions about online ordering and catering.
The website gives its own account of the place:
"We wanted people to feel like they were walking into someone's home — because in a way, they are." — Silvia, Owner, on the Casa de Silvia website
The same page says every dish began as a recipe for a Sunday table long before it went on a menu. That fits the earlier coverage. In 2018 the family called the recipes family-passed and the business family-owned, according to Coachella Valley Weekly. A small, family-run counter that closes at 2 p.m. is about the same size as the business that won in 2015.
Because of those hours, the restaurant fits a morning and not an evening. For a household in town for the season, it suits a weekday breakfast before an 11 a.m. tee time, or a Sunday gathering with guests who arrived the night before, as long as that Sunday doesn't call for a reservation.
Holiday Tamales Bring Back the Original Business
The menu shows where the business came from all year, but the holidays show it most clearly. The Casa de Silvia homepage has a seasonal section for holiday tamales, made by hand, with pre-orders for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Customers order online, pay ahead and pick up at the counter on the day they choose. As of late October, the site said pre-orders were "open soon," and the order page has a Holiday Pre-Orders option.
The site had not yet posted pickup dates, order deadlines, prices by the dozen or this year's varieties, so check the order page directly. Thanksgiving falls on November 26 this year, so the first pickup day is only a few weeks away. A paid-ahead pickup system for a family business making tamales by hand means quantities and pickup days are set in advance, so it pays to check early.
This is also the format the family started with. They began by cooking tamales in volume and passing them across a counter or a property line, before any brunch menu existed. The holiday pre-order goes back to that model, now with online checkout.
December 5 and 6, Back on Miles Avenue
The 34th annual Indio International Tamale Festival returns to Downtown Indio on December 5 and 6, 2026, according to the City of Indio. The festival FAQ says admission is free and open to the public. The event fills downtown streets around City Hall and Center Stage, including Miles Avenue, Smurr Street, Towne Street and Civic Center Drive.
Casa de Silvia's Indio restaurant was at 82720 Miles Ave., so the festival takes place on the same street where the family opened its first dining room.
The city's 2026 vendor call is also written for people like the Rendons in 2015. It invites small, home-based and community tamale vendors, and it says you don't need to own a restaurant or established food business to take part. Every vendor still has to meet City of Indio and Riverside County requirements before selling food. A family with a good recipe and no storefront can still rent a booth this December, which is how Silvia's Tamales started out.
For someone in La Quinta, the season lines up around the Caleo Bay counter, with pre-ordered tamales for Thanksgiving and again for Christmas. Between those two pickups, on the first weekend of December, the festival returns to Miles Avenue, where the family's 2015 Best Overall Tamale award began.
If you're settling into La Quinta, or thinking about how a particular community fits the way you spend your mornings, Tyson Hawley would be glad to share local knowledge with you over coffee, or a plate of chilaquiles. Schedule a Private Consultation.
