La Casa Machado y Silvas - Commercial Restaurant
Location: Next to Racine & Laramie building
Old Town State Historic Park
Old Town San Diego, CA (map)
Phone: (619) 220-5422
More info: Website
Built in the early 1840s, this rectangular adobe on the plaza was a wedding present from Jose Manuel Machado to his daughter, Maria Antonia, and her husband, Jose Antonio Nicasio Silvas. It had four rooms and three doorways that opened onto the plaza.
Maria Antonia converted the casa into the Commercial Restaurant in the early 1850s. She also owned part of the family’s Rancho El Rosario in Baja California.
The Machado y Silvas family owned the property until the early 1930s. It was a rooming-house, café, art studio, souvenir shop, and community chapel before becoming part of the California States Park in 1968. It is one of five historic adobes in the park.