- Ramon Cardenas Sr., founder of Salt Lake City’s Red Iguana restaurant, died last Friday.
- Cardenas launched Red Iguana in 1985 with his late wife Maria, and it’s become one of Salt Lake City’s most recognizable Mexican restaurants.
- Daughter Lucy Cardenas, who now runs Red Iguana, praised her father’s legacy of warmth, hard work and culinary passion.
SALT LAKE CITY — The founder of one of Salt Lake City’s most iconic restaurants, Red Iguana, has died, 40 years after first opening the Mexican eatery and 60 years after the launch of his career as a restaurateur.
Ramon Cardenas Sr. — known to patrons and family as Don Ramon — died Friday at the age of 92. He had stepped back from day-to-day operations of Red Iguana 20 years ago, when daughter Lucy Cardenas took over, but still offered support to those running the business and often visited as a patron.
“The family and our Red Iguana team are grieving deeply, but we are also leaning on each other and celebrating Ramon’s extraordinary life,” Lucy Cardenas, who now runs the business with her husband Bill Coker, said in a statement. “We’ve received an outpouring of love from the community, which has been very comforting.”…