Ray Garcia is selling groceries again. Maybe life really is a circle. Maybe that's not such a bad thing. “It's busy,” he says, standing behind the register of his little La Mexicana Grocery in Newport. “Thank God.”

Susy Garcia and her husband, Ray, holding their 2 year-old daughter, Susana Rey, opened La Mexicana Grocery in Newport five years ago. (Craig Ruttle photo) | ZOOM |

        Customers are jammed around the cluttered counter. His wife, Susy, is nearby on the phone, and the grill is sizzling downstairs in the taqueria (restaurant). This is what business owners live for.

        Mr. Garcia grew up in Mexico City, the sweet scent of oranges and prickly heat of fresh chiles in his nostrils. His mother, Francisca, peddled fruit and vegetables on the dusty city streets, and he started helping her when he was old enough to walk.

        He knew what a grueling business this is, and that knowledge came in handy five years ago, when Mr. Garcia and his wife pondered whether to open La Mexicana.

Sonia Arauda and husband Pastor Hermosa wheel out their weekly groceries. (Craig Ruttle photo) | ZOOM |

        “I told my wife: "If we do this we have to be serious,' ” he says. “No Sundays off. This is a job that takes time.”

        La Mexicana was one of the first Hispanic-owned food markets to open in Greater Cincinnati, and it has succeeded because Mr. Garcia drives to Chicago every week to get the best products, because the charming Ms. Garcia can't stop smiling at customers, and because the store is open on Sundays. Even when it's slow.

        “We have to be there when people want to buy something,” Mr. Garcia says.

What it takes

        Most of his life, it seems, Mr. Garcia has understood what it takes to succeed and what it takes to be happy.

As a 9 year-old, Mr. Garcia (center, in cap) learned the grocery business working with his mother, Francisca, and older brother, Alfredo (left) at the family market in Mexico City. | ZOOM |

        He left Mexico in 1970 when he was 16 to find a job at a horse track near Sacramento, Calif. He fed and cared for the horses, but he never enjoyed the lifestyle.

        “The thing is,” he says, “you live right there with horses. You never get away from the barns.”

        All alone, he spoke little English then. But working and living with the horses was better than life in Mexico. So he stayed.

        Mr. Garcia soon met a man in the upholstery business. He had never worked as an upholsterer, never even sewed on a button. But he wanted to learn a trade, and upholstery was it.

        “I told the man, even if you don't pay me anything, I will work,” he says. “I wanted to learn.”

        The first week, Mr. Garcia worked 60 hours for the upholsterer and earned $30. Within five months, he made enough to buy his own equipment and began covering car seats and restaurant chairs.

IF YOU GO

• La Mexicana Grocery Store & Taqueria   • 642 Monmouth St., Newport   • (859) 291-3520   • Open: 9 a.m.-10 p.m. daily   • Browsing the aisles: Fresh tomatoes; tomatillos; nopales (cactus); serranos, jalapenos and other chiles; plantains; bananas; and avocados. Also, Mexican cheese, sour cream, yogurt, tamarind, pear and other fruit nectars, horchata concentrate (a flavored drink made from rice or nuts), dried and canned chiles, corn husks for tamales, masa harina (corn flour) and a variety of Mexican convenience foods   • From the taqueria: Tacos, tortas (sandwiches), burritos, quesadillas and sopas (soups). $1.50 (tacos) — $6.50 (soup).

        California's high cost of living made it difficult for Mr. Garcia to get ahead, though. His brother was living in Kentucky and suggested he join him. So in 1979, he left the West Coast for Lexington, to work with horses again.

        “I prayed to get out of there,” Mr. Garcia says.

        Perhaps someone heard his prayers. Two years later, Mr. Garcia discovered that a friend from California, also an upholsterer, was moving to Ludlow to get married. He called to ask if he could work in the friend's shop. Soon, Mr. Garcia was headed north on Interstate 75, leaving the horse barns of Lexington behind.

        From the beginning, he made it clear to his new employer that his plan was eventually to open his own upholstery shop. Everyone knew this, including a customer named Clyde.

        “He used to tease me,” Mr. Garcia says. “Clyde would say: "You don't know what it takes to own your business.' ”

        Within a year, Clyde paid a visit to Mr. Garcia's new upholstery shop in Bellevue. He came to admit he was wrong and to congratulate him.

Sensing a need

        As it turns out, Mr. Garcia's most important business move was to marry Susy. The couple met in 1992 when they took an English class together. They dated only a month before deciding to marry.

        “I'm the best thing that ever happened to her,” says Mr. Garcia with a grin. His wife shoots back one of those looks that'll probably mean trouble later.

        By the time they married, Mr. Garcia had moved his J & C Upholstery Shop to Monmouth Street in Newport. Those days, when the couple went to Chicago to buy Mexican groceries for themselves, Hispanic friends would ask them to bring back fresh tortillas and other food.

        “That's when I told my wife maybe we should do this,” Mr. Garcia says.

        The couple had just made a down payment on a house in Florence, but after mulling the decision, they asked for a refund. They used the money to buy store space just down the block from Mr. Garcia's upholstery shop. At first, the couple tried selling clothes as well as a few groceries. That didn't work.

        “There were days when we didn't sell a penny,” Mr. Garcia says.

        They took out the clothes and turned La Mexicana into a full-fledged grocery, with fresh produce, cheese, tortillas and canned goods. The word went out, and customers flocked to La Mexicana.

        Later, Mr. Garcia started selling fresh tacos on weekends. Customers loved the soft corn tacos, filled with chicken, beef or pork and garnished with cilantro and fresh lime. Everything was fine until a health inspector stopped by.

        “He asked if I had a permit to sell tacos,” Mr. Garcia says. “I didn't have a permit. I didn't know I needed one.”

        He installed the proper cooking equipment, as well as a jukebox that plays snappy tejana music and a television hanging from the ceiling that plays Mexican soap operas nonstop. Tacos, burritos and quesadillas fly off the La Mexicana grill at lunch and dinner every day — including Sundays.

Service with a smile

        Mr. Garcia gives much of the credit for his success to the childhood training from his mother in Mexico City. When he was only 7, he was expected to pick up produce from his mother's suppliers and open the family's market stand.

        “My mother taught me how to treat customers,” he says. “I learned they always come first.”

BOOK EXPLAINS ALL

Author Linda Bladholm can help guide you through the Hispanic market aisles with her handy Latin & Caribbean Grocery Stores Demystified (Renaissance; $16.95), which provides descriptions of ingredients. an overview of Latin culture and cuisine and a few recipes.     Ms. Bladholm also has published two other ethnic market shopping guides: The Asian Grocery Demystified (Renaissance: $16.95) and The Indian Grocery Demystified (Renaissance; $16.95).

        But at La Mexicana, Ms. Garcia is president of customer service.

        “She is very good with customers,” her husband says. “Always smiling.”

        “Sometimes, even when I'm in a bad mood, customers come and I feel better,” says Ms. Garcia, who moved to the United States in 1992.

        Most customers are Mexican, Central or South American, but when the Garcias see non-Hispanics in the store, they greet them in Spanish.

        “If we see they don't speak Spanish, we ask if we can help them in English,” Mr. Garcia says.

        About once a week, Mr. Garcia drives to Chicago to buy tomatillos, corn husks for tamales, jalapenos stuffed with tuna and other products wholesale because he says he can get them for less without a middleman. And he can hand-pick his purchases at the markets to make sure they're the best.

        “Hispanics want the best tortillas and the best peppers,” he says.

        For those buying trips, Mr. Garcia starts up the truck at 3:30 a.m. He may not return to Newport until 9:30 p.m.

Looking ahead

        But selling groceries isn't so bad — at least the second time around. Mr. Garcia likes to say that owning a business means you always have money in your pocket. But when you work for someone else, you're waiting for the next paycheck.

        The Garcias operate the grocery, taqueria and upholstery shop with the help of a handful of workers. But like many successful entrepreneurs, they believe owners should be there working on premises as much as possible.

        “When I go back to Mexico City, they think I'm a rich American,” he says. “They're impressed that I even stop to talk to old friends. But that's another thing my mother taught me: Always treat people like people.”

        Standing in his upholstery shop, he looks at pictures of his children, Raymond, 7, and Susy, 2.

        “If they want to do this (sell groceries), that's OK,” he says. “They just need to know you have little time for yourself.”

        Within the year, Mr. Garcia hopes to expand seating in his restaurant and to add fajitas and margaritas to his menu. He promises not to make it “too American.”

        There are rumors Mr. Garcia is looking to open another grocery, maybe in Butler County.

        “I don't know,” he says, shaking his head. “But I'll tell you, if I do, it'll be a big store.”

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