The restaurant — first La Tapatia, then El Poblano, later Carta Blanca and finally from 1948, Casa Blanca — was in the center of a complex of medical offices occupied by a prominent surgeon ...

Vargas and his wife, Elsa, own the Andover of North Andover Casa Blanca, and they opened Amigo's Mexican Kitchen in Peabody in late 2019, just before the pandemic rattled the restaurant industry.