BY MAIRE O’NEILL
maire@losalamosreporter.com
Questions about the safety of the building at 1315 Trinity Drive, are leaving the future of Muy Salsas LA Restaurant undecided following the January transfer of the property Trinity by owner Elizabeth Bezzerides of Trinity Wood, LLC to St. Job of Pochaiv Orthodox Church.
The Reporter was contacted earlier this month by Christine Corral, who owns Muy Salsas LA , along with her sister Gisel Martinez and mother Patricia Corral. The two sisters, who signed a two-year lease for the restaurant June 18, 2021, and since it expired in 2023, they have been leasing on a month by month basis. On January 2, 2026, Muy Salsas says the the property was transferred by Trinity Wood LLC as a gift to St. Job of Pochaiv Orthodox Church, which is located behind the Muy Salsas LA location. Muy Salsas claims that they were told to direct their rent to St. Job’s but that as of August 5, 2026, they were never provided with an explanation or formally notified of the rest of the deed or its restrictions.
According to Muy Salsas, on July 10, Bradley Odegard, an attorney for St. Job’s wrote to them stating that an inspection of the premises had noted that numerous structural deficiencies had been identified and that occupants and visitors to the building were at risk, The attorney stated that the church lacked the resources to make the improvements and that the lease was being terminated for safety reasons as of August 31.
Muy Salsas says they sought the factual basis for the “emergency claim”, including the inspection findings. the nature and location of the alleged deficiencies and whether or not any public authority had declared the building unsafe or prohibited occupancy. Muy Salsas says they texted Father Theophan Mackey of St. Job’s July 31 in an attempt to have a “good faith” conversation that would include Ms. Bezzerides but that he insisted that they would have to go through the church’s attorney to avoid misunderstanding.
In a letter to the Reporter earlier this week, Muy Salsas said they had a contractor inspect the issues that had been raised had finally received more information, including the cost of the repairs and an explanation of how the work could be done.
“The contractor explained that the building issue he evaluated is repairable. The amount is also significantly less than what we had originally been led to believe,” the letter noted. After that information was forwarded to Mr. Odegard, Muy Salsas says that instead of resolving the concern that had originally been presented to them, “another issue was then raised: “the roof”.
It is common knowledge that there have been issues with the building for many years. The reason Los Alamos County is not involved at this point is that the current situation is considered a “civil dispute”. Apparently, if one or other of the parties was to submit a report by a licensed professional to the County stating that the building was unsafe, that is when the County would step in. Although commercial buildings are inspected on an annual basis by the Los Alamos Fire Marshal, they are not generally required to have routine annual structural or general building inspections by local building officials. Building inspections occur during active construction, remodeling, or alterations requiring a permit.
The Reporter reached out to Father Theophan just days after initially being contacted by Muy Salsas. He confirmed that in January 2026, Trinity Wood had donated the property to St. Job’s.
“At that point we were ready to let things be the way they were. Then in May I got a call from Muy Salsas saying there was a leak in the roof. It was the first time it rained in 2026 and a leak in the roof became apparent. I asked (Christine) who do you have work on stuff normally and she gave me the name of a fellow and I contacted him to see if he was licensed. Now that the church is responsible, we need to only use licensed contractors. Our insurance company would drop us if something happened. It turns out he wasn’t. We found a contractor through someone in our church and this is when things started going badly”, Father Theophan said.
He said, the contractor told him the building was “completely unsafe”.
“A third of the floor and all its supporting members will need to be replaced, and the entire roof is compromised. What happened was when the last person, and this was probably 10 or 15 years ago, put the metal roof on that building, they used the wrong screws and they went through the membrane and water has permeated every screw hole. It’s been happening for a long time,” Father Theophan said.
He said Muy Salsas is not responsible for the repairs. but this was where a decision had to be made.
“The landlord according to the (original) ease is responsible for the structural maintenance of the building. The price tag that the contractor quoted us and he may be inflating it was $200,000 and two months of closure. I don’t believe the two-months of closure because nothing happens in two months here,” Father Theophan said. “Our operating budget for a year is $100,000. This is not possible for us to take on. It is an unsafe building – that’s what we believe. Taking the contractor’s word, we through the lawyer, because we wanted everything to be on record, we said ‘You need to cease and desist now because it’s unsafe’.”
What happened when the original lease expired was that rental of the restaurant went to went month to month from 2023 to 2026. Father Theophan said the Muy Salsas had never signed a lease with St. Jobs but the lease that was in effect in January rolls over from one landlord to another.
“Instead of providing this expensive estimate, we said we can end the lease at the end of August. What we’ve done in the past week is we have said you’re welcome to get your own estimate and tell us that the building is safe. Get us a licensed contractor and go in there and say it’s safe and then we’ll talk. But as of now, that building is unsafe and we don’t want the public injured. That’s what we’re looking at – an expensive repair that the church cannot afford. And really that is the only motive that we have,” Father Theophan said.
He said the Parish Council decided that St. Job’s needed to get a lawyer because they had to weigh continued operation versus risk.
“We have not charged rent since we knew of the repairs necessary – June, July or August – because we knew that it was unsafe and it is wrong to charge for an unsafe building,” he said.
If Muy Salsas finds a licenses contractor to say the building is safe, Father Theophan said St. Job’s would “rethink it”.
“It’s completely the safety issue that’s the only issue. There’s no ulterior motive. We’re not using that building for anything else because it’s unsafe so I can’t put my people in there. If we could afford to have it demolished by the end of the year, we probably would,” he said. “Even if we had $200,000 to out into it right now, you’d still have an 80 year old building and something else is going to go wrong next month. So it is not responsible for us to continue in this situation. In the quit claim that we got it is to be used as a church in perpetuity.”
Father Theophan said the deadline is Aug. 31.
“The deadline is Aug. 31. If they send the lawyer a report saying the building is safe, then we’ll meet and talk. But without that, nothing has changed. Everybody feels terribly about it, because it’s people’s livelihoods and we’re not doing it lightly.” he said.