Raymond G. Marshall; Philanthropist, Founder of Mexican Restaurant Chain

Raymond G. Marshall, founder of the award-winning Acapulco y Los Arcos Mexican restaurant chain and a philanthropist who regularly donated portions of his profits to charity, is dead.

Lois Dwan, The Times’ former restaurant critic, said Marshall was 77 when he died Monday in his Arcadia home of cancer.

Marshall was a teen-ager in Denver when he first sampled Mexican food and became an aficionado. His knowledge of Mexican cooking came when he was working as a night chef at the Biltmore Hotel, where he prepared meals for himself and his assistants. He also went to his assistants’ homes and the restaurants they patronized in East Los Angeles and watched the preparation of various dishes. He opened the first of what would become 38 Acapulco y Los Arcos restaurants in Pasadena in 1960.

The first eight-page menu included a crab meat enchilada that won a gold medal in the Fisherman’s Wharf seafood competition in San Francisco 10 years later.

Marshall’s other awards include gold medals from competitions in New York, California and Germany, and in 1977 he received the president’s award from the American Culinary Federation. His restaurants also were honored by Restaurant Business magazine for becoming what the magazine called the first authentic Mexican dinner house chain in America.

In 1982, a year before he sold the chain, the company had sales of $37 million. Each of his restaurants set aside certain days when all proceeds above expenses were donated to charity.

Survivors include his wife, Gertrude, and his son, John.

Donations in Marshall’s name may be made to the Cancer Research Institute of Los Angeles.