Family-run Salvadoran restaurant has made old Lenexa Le Peep its home

In the kitchen at El Rinconcito in Lenexa.

In the kitchen at El Rinconcito Salvadoreño #2, which opened earlier this year in an old Le Peep on Quivira Road in Lenexa. Photo credit Ben McCarthy.

Every Thursday, you can find Rosa Cardoza leaving her Lenexa restaurant and heading out to a “secret” location somewhere in Kansas to purchase plantains for her dessert empanadas.

She’s hesitant to give the exact location of the store because she says it’s the only one in the area that provides her with the perfectly ripe plantains needed to make her signature sweet treat on her newest restaurant’s menu.