The Macayo’s family-owned tradition began in 1946 when owners Woody and Victoria Johnson opened Woody’s El Nido in Phoenix, the first of the Macayo’s restaurant collection. The Mexican café only had six tables and a counter, serving about 100 meals a week, most of them a $1 combination plate.

Five years later, the couple introduced their second restaurant, Little Woody’s and the first Macayo’s was launched in the heart of downtown Phoenix on Central Avenue in 1952. Today, the family has 18 restaurants; 14 of them in Arizona including Tucson, Casa Grande and Prescott and four in Las Vegas. Still family owned and operated, the company is now run by the Johnson’s two sons, Gary and Stephen and daughter Sharisse.

Macayo’s Event Donates $5,000 to HomeBase

Macayo’s Mexican Kitchen donated $5,000 to Home Base Youth Services raised from proceeds of a Cinco de Mayo Event. Macayo’s Depot Cantina in Tempe, Arizona holds an annual event to celebrate Cinco de Mayo on May 5th. Shares of the event’s proceeds were donated to the organization Home Base Youth Services.

The vision of HBYS is "No kid sleeps on the streets." HBYS tells the homeless and runaway youth of the valley, ‘You are welcome here, you are valued and you are worthy of respect.’ “We are very grateful to Macayo’s and the Johnson family for making this donation, and the donations from past years,” said Jo Ann Yeo, Development Director of Home Base Youth Services.

This donation could be used to offset HBYS’s portion of the collaborative Medical Van expense for one month or provide housing for a youth for two years. “Lending support to neighborhood programs is very important to us,” said Owner and President of Macayo’s Stephen Johnson. “We are happy to be involved in our community and help the families we serve.”

In 1946, when Woody and Victoria Johnson opened their first Mexican food café in Phoenix the place had only six tables and a counter. Each week they served around a hundred meals, most of them the

$1 combination plate. Today the family has 17 restaurants- 13 in Arizona, and 4 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Still family owned and operated, the company is now run by the Johnson’s’ two sons, Gary and Stephen, and daughter, Sharisse.

Photo Caption: Macayo’s Area Director Reed Johnson and General Manager Jeff Rhodes present a donation to Home Base Youth Services at Macayo’s Depot Cantina. Home Base will use the donation to help keep teens and young adults off the streets.

Left to Right: Macayo’s Depot Cantina General Manager Jeff Rhodes, Development Director for Home Base Jo Ann Yeo, President and Chief Executive Officer for Home Base Youth Services Patricia Leach, and Macayo’s Area Director Reed Johnson.