| Subject: |
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Vallarta: A fresh food experience |
| Name: |
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AV Press |
| Date Posted: |
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Oct 14, 07 - 3:57 PM |
| Email: |
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lhymas@avpress.com |
| Where are you from? |
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Antelope Valley |
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KEEP IT BOILING - Thomas Trujillo, assistant store director, stirs hot meat dishes available for shoppers at Vallarta Supermarket in east Palmdale.
GENE BRECKNER/Valley Press
Vallarta: A fresh food experience
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press on Sunday, October 14, 2007.
By LINDSAY HYMAS
Valley Press Staff Writer
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Vallarta supermarkets - known for their food, sauces and meat seasonings - have enjoyed success in the Antelope Valley since 1991, when the first Antelope Valley store opened on Palmdale Boulevard.
The atmosphere inside stores is inviting, with spirited Mexican music reaching every corner and aisle.
"People come to the store for produce, meat, groceries and the restaurant," said John Marquis, general manager of Vallarta stores.
"If you're looking for a healthy meal to take home, the meat counter is a good place to visit," Marquis said.
The meat counters sell meat and seafood and employ between 15 and 30 butchers who are trained to cut meat using saws and blades, and in various types of cuts.
Stores also sell prepared meats like marinated chicken, pork and steak and carne asada. They make fresh sausage every day, including Salvadorean chorizo and Reynaldo's pork longariza.
"We'll cook the stuff for you right there in the store," at the restaurant, Marquis said.
Each store has a full service restaurant.
The Vallarta stores also make fresh guacamole, pico de gallo and multiple hot sauces.
"We make our own ceviche," Marquis said. "It's made from fish, octopus, squid and shrimp. (The meat) is marinated in lemon juice, onions, cilantro or tomatoes for about a day."
The cremeria, which is part of the meat department, makes its own cheese and yogurt, and also sells rice pudding, parfait, fruit salads, pasta salads and more.
Employees make juices from watermelon, mangos, strawberries, oranges, carrots and celery at the juice bar. Some of the juices are seasonal and others are made year-round.
Each store has a full-service bakery with a variety of American and Hispanic breads and pastries.
Pan de muerto, or "bread for the dead," is popular around this time of year, said Adrian Flores, bakery manager. The bread is sweet and is covered in pink or white sprinkles or sesame seeds. It is eaten on Nov. 2 for el Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead.
Fresh tortillas are made daily in the tortilla area. Tortillas begin as raw corn that is cooked, squashed, mixed, dropped, cut, then cooled until the fresh, warm tortillas shoot out from a conveyor shelf into neat piles, ready to be packaged.
"Our produce department has a much better selection of produce and herbs than you'll find in most supermarkets," Marquis said.
Vallarta purchases produce from a market in downtown L.A., he said. The variety of produce includes cactus and chayote.
A chayote, he said, "looks like a very large avocado. You can skin them or boil them whole."
Red cactus fruit is not found in most grocery stores, said Jose Tirado, a manager-in-training. "Latinos eat this a lot. You don't have to cook it. You just cut off the ends, make a little slit in the middle and peel off the skin. Then you eat the fruit in the middle."
Palemon Nazario is the produce manager at the Palmdale store.
The store has a good selection of Mexican, Central and South American products, Marquis said. "We carry a lot of fresh herbs and spices. We have large Hispanic-flavored spice racks," he said.
Vallarta orders sodas from El Salvador and buys Coca-Cola from Mexico because there it is made with sugar cane instead of corn syrup as it is done in the States, he said.
Vallarta stores operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, Marquis said. Holidays like Christmas, New Year's, Mother's Day, 4th of July, Labor Day and Easter are the busiest days.
According to Marquis, Hispanic customers make up 60% of Vallarta's customers.
Stores employ 200 to 300 people "because we're so service oriented," Marquis said. "Our stores typically have 12 to14 cash registers. They are not all open at one time, but we try not to have more than one customer in line. That's our goal," he said.
All positions are trained through instruction and in-store training.
Marquis said cleaning crews work to clean stores during the day and at night.
"I think you'll find that ourstores are cleaner than most grocery stores you walk into," he said.
Vallarta started with a bracero - a Mexican laborer allowed into the U.S. for a limited time as a seasonal agricultural worker - named Enrique Gonzalez Sr. who came to the United States in the 1950s.
He landed a job working at Lamplighter, a family diner in Van Nuys, and became a chef. Eventually he saved enough money to go out on his own.
Gonzalez opened the first 1,800-square-foot carniceria - meat market - in 1984 in Van Nuys. In 1994 the first supermarket-style store opened there as well. Now there are 24 stores in the San Fernando, San Joaquin and Antelope valleys and in Victorville, Marquis said.
Since the first Palmdale store opened in 1991, it has been relocated across the street to 440 Palmdale Blvd., two more stores opened in Palmdale and Lancaster, and plans are under way for a fourth, 52,000-square-foot store on Challenger and Avenue K in Lancaster. The existing store in Lancaster is relocating to 20th Street West and Avenue I and will be open by December, Marquis said. All the stores are 30,000 square feet or larger.
Vallarta is co-owned by Gonzalez and his son, Enrique Gonzalez Jr.
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