PRINT THIS PAGE | E-MAIL THIS PAGE

Monday, June 30, 1997

Tastes of Latin American draw customers to Rio Grande Valley store

By FERNANDO DEL VALLE / Valley Morning Star

MCALLEN, Texas - Deep in the city's barrio, Ruben Cavazos and his family are busy running the Valley's most cosmopolitan mom- and-pop store.

And for a growing number of Latin-Americans, it's like a taste of home.

Ruben's Grocery doesn't don the trappings of snazzy McAllen supermarkets.

It's more like the traditional Latin American "bodega" that's the heart of an old neighborhood.

Above the aisles of foods from Argentina, Peru, Colombia and Spain hang bunches of plump plantains.

The oldest son, Ruben Cavazos Jr., regularly travels to a Puerto Rican coffee mill to buy some of the dark roasted coffees that stand on the grocery's shelves.

Wines from Chile, Italy and Spain fill the shop's wooden racks.

"This is the way we get our customers," the 32-year-old Cavazos said as he pointed to grocery aisles stuffed with about 1,300 food items he stocks from Latin America, Spain, Italy and other countries.

Noemi Lamela was standing at the grocery's meat counter where a butcher was wrapping up "milanesa," a lean, boneless, thinly sliced steak she uses to stuff her "empanadas," a staple in her native Argentina.

"They always have a lot of things from Argentina, and now they have a lot more," said Ms. Lamela, a 53-year-old editorial assistant at the Spanish-language newspaper El Periodico USA in McAllen.

For more than six years, Ms. Lamela has been a steady customer of the store, where she first found the Argentine dough known as "tapas" that she uses to make her empanadas.

"They do something that I think is very interesting, because they stock the things that are the countries' staple foods," said Ms. Lamela, who for years ran Alex's, a local Argentine restaurant she sold last year.

The grocery business that today draws customers from as far as San Antonio, Corpus Christi and Monterrey opened in 1970 at the side of the Cavazos' old home down the street.

The store's meat market quickly made it a favorite in the area, recalled Ruben Cavazos Sr., 60, who came to McAllen in 1960 from Cadereyta in Nuevo Leon, Mexico.

But as big grocery chains like H.E.B. slashed their prices, they took more and more customers away, the elder Cavazos recalled.

"So we had to look for a new market," he said.

Then about nine years ago, a customer from Cuba asked him to bring a few Cuban staples such as plantains, yuccas and olive oils from Miami, Ruben Cavazos Sr. recalled.

For his customer - Cristobal Casanova, who had been away from Cuba since 1961 - Cavazos brought back a taste of home.

"You remember your homeland," said Casanova, 59, owner of Royal Import and Export Co., a jewelry supply business in McAllen. "It makes you feel very good."

Cavazos quickly found a niche in the market.

"My friends started asking me for things and I got them for them," he said.

In the last 10 years, the family store has doubled its business, he said.

"We've got good prices, but we also sell our personal attention," said the younger Cavazos, who said he works about 14 hours a day at the store. "We sell friendship; we sell ourselves."

The shop also sells a hodgepodge of items from throughout Latin America.

From a glass case, Ruben Cavazos Jr. plucks a "mate," a rounded cup made from the shell of a gourd from which Argentines drink a tea known as "yerba mate." To sift the tea's residue, the drink must be sipped through a straw-like instrument known as a "bombilla," he explains.

"All the Argentines drink mate, and the Uruguayans more," Ms. Lamela adds from across an aisle.

To give the dark-roasted Latin coffees their traditional flavor, the store sells a line of espresso coffee makers.

On the grocery aisles, "maize morado," a purple corn from Peru, can be used to make a savory pudding or a tangy tea, the younger Cavazos explains.

A line of hearty chorizos comes from Spain.

And in the store's frozen section, "papas rellenas," or beef-stuffed potatoes, "croquetas" filled with ham and chicken, and beef-stuffed empanadas are regularly shipped in from the East Coast.

When Ms. Lamela cooks with an Argentine cooking oil that's a blend of olive and sunflower oils, it brings back memories of the country she left 15 years ago.

"When I cook with this, my kitchen smells like a kitchen in Argentina," she smiled.

For some customers, grocery shopping at the store has been a heartfelt experience, Ruben Cavazos Jr. said.

"I've had ladies actually cry when they see something from their home country, and that's the biggest joy for me," he said.

---

Distributed by The Associated Press Send a Letter to the Editor about This Story | Start or Join A Discussion about This Story
Send the URL (Address) of This Story to A Friend: