This Place Serves Guatemalan, Thai, and Mexican Food—Together

Story & images by: Richard Porter.

It’s the classic date night debate.

You want curry and pad thai, but your partner wants burritos and tacos. Negotiations start calmly but soon escalate—because neither party will compromise, you picked last time, and I’m just not feeling the tofu-and-noodles thing tonight.

Or better yet, imagine opting out of the argument entirely.

*Dos Hermano’s Chapines’ brick & mortar at* *2116 19th St in North Everett.*

Imagine a restaurant — let’s say an unassuming place off Broadway — where diverse global cuisines can coexist.

Meet Dos Hermanos Chapines, a Thai restaurant owned and operated by two Guatemalan brothers. It’s a place where the tables are stocked with both soy sauce and Tapatio and the menu offers Mexican Coke and horchata next to Thai iced tea. Tacked to the wall is a National Geographic world map that says it best: when it comes to date night cuisine from around the world, you can have it all.

At the corner of 19th and everywhere

Dos Hermanos Chapines moved into my neighborhood six months ago. They’re located in a vintage (1970s? 80s?) strip mall on 19th Street — right on the border between the Riverside and Delta Neighborhoods.

The cross streets of 19th and Broadway form a cultural crossroads. Within a one-block radius you can find Grocery Singh (selling South Asian foods, primarily Indian), Colors of Hawaii, Noble Palace II (Chinese restaurant), Pho on Broadway, Tacos Ruleta, a Spanish-speaking Pentecostal church, and a boutique specializing in quinceañera dresses.

This is clearly a diverse neighborhood, part of a diverse city. Indeed, according to a recent survey, there are eighty-three languages spoken in the Everett Public School District.

The chapines part of Dos Hermanos Chapines refers to a term Guatemalans use for themselves. The chapin was a traditional shoe worn by Guatemalans and over time it became associated with the people of Guatemala.

*Thai? Mexican? Guatemalan?! How ‘bout all three!*

Dos Hermanos Chapines began operations as a food truck on Evergreen. Like El Mariachi Tacos and Birria before them, they made the move from mobile operations to a brick and mortar restaurant. Their branding is informal in a way that feels honest and endearing, their social media presence is virtually nonexistent, and their signage is lacking. I personally think this marketing deficit is great in an era when you can often pay for the “vibe” of a hip eatery without sinking your teeth into anything substantial. They’re small, but punch above their weight in terms of neighborhood value and flavor.

When my family ate at Dos Hermanos, both brothers waited on our table, and gave us not one but three(!) coffee mugs with their logo emblazoned on the side. This warm, homegrown approach is charming.

The food: it’s not one thing, and that’s the point

The first thing you need to know is that the portions are share-size. Please order at least one entrée per diner to support this small business but be prepared to take home half your meal for a TV snack or tomorrow’s lunch. The menu can be a bit overwhelming, but it helps to break it down by style: there are entrees, noodle dishes, rice dishes, and tacos/Guatemalan food. For those of us accustomed to Americanized Tex-Mex food (no shade here; our family loves El Paraiso), be prepared, in the best way, for a more Central American take on cuisine — including pescado frito, pepian, and frijol blanco con costillo de puerco.

A fridge offers bebidas like Fanta and Mexican Coke, but the servers bring out goblets of ice water, too.

And the thing is it works. I took my family of five. We ordered tofu pad thai, a spicy yellow curry, a burrito and a quesadilla drizzled in queso fresco and they all tasted delicious. All of these items came from the same kitchen, and landed right, pleasing each member of my family.

Dos Hermanos Chapines makes sense in a city where over 17% of the population is Latino, and 10% is Asian American.

So when it’s date night and you can’t broker a culinary truce there’s at least one place in town that you can both agree on. Dos Hermanos Chapines is a place where quiet excellence, immigrant entrepreneurship, food truck-born boldness, and family joy all fit together on the same plate.

The restaurant has a modern identity — fluid, layered, and not easily categorized — which is pretty much how I’d describe life in Delta and Riverside.

Welcome to the neighborhood, Dos Hermanos. We’ll be back.

Dos Hermanos Chapines
2116 19th St // Everett, WA 98201
(425) 382-2969

Richard Porter is a marketer for Snohomish County’s Executive Office by day, and a freelance writer. He lives with his wife and daughters in Everett. When he’s not writing or drinking coffee, he’s probably binging podcasts while running or hiking.

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