Chain Finds Success With a Latino Flavor

Every week Donna Allred and her husband, Antonio Flores, drive to El Monte from their Walnut home to shop for groceries at Tianguis, a giant, brightly colored emporium that caters to the Latino community.

“We come here because we can’t find some of this food anywhere else,” Allred said near the service deli, where she buys flan for dessert and ready-made chili relleno “because it’s too hard for me to make.”

Allred and Flores look for specialty items that can’t be found in most supermarket chains, such as bolliyo, a traditional Mexican roll; skirt steak for fajitas or “wonderful fresh tortillas.”

Flores said Tianguis reminds him of markets in his native Mexico, “especially when the mariachis play.”

The market is not, as one would expect, an independent store that has expanded to keep pace with success. Tianguis was created by the Vons supermarket chain to capture a greater portion of the Latino market.

The first Tianguis--a 60,000-square-foot warehouse--opened in Montebello in early 1987, and was soon followed by an 80,000-square-foot store in El Monte and a 50,000-square-foot one in Cudahy. The stores were so successful that Vons opened a 52,000-square-foot unit in Huntington Park in May, and has converted some of its bought-out Safeways, as well.

The chain is scheduled to open a 60,000-square-foot Tianguis in San Fernando sometime in early 1991.

Chris Linskey, vice president and general manager for Tianguis, said Vons spent $1.5 million on research and development of the stores. “It was just a matter of time before the major chains began to address this issue,” he said.

Tianguis (pronounced Tee-on-geese) is an Aztec word that means marketplace, and the name is appropriate: The bright green, yellow and orange Aztec-inspired designs painted on the building are repeated inside, on shopping carts and plastic bags. Rainbow, donkey and bird pinatas dangle from the ceiling, and Latin music wafts from the loudspeaker.

Debbie Hernandez of Baldwin Park has been shopping at the El Monte Tianguis since it opened. She comes mainly to buy meat and produce, but she can never leave, she said, without stopping at the panaderia for a treat--maybe a little raspberry cake to keep her two boys quiet as she shops, or the banana and lemon muffins she buys for herself and her mother.

“Anything you want you can find here,” said Hernandez, putting a package of seasoned taco meat in her cart next to a package of longaniza chorizo.

Well, almost anything. Shoppers won’t find microwave popcorn or low-calorie frozen dinners. Linskey said most Tianguis shoppers like to prepare their own dishes. Only 50% of the stock is prepackaged goods, in contrast to 70% at Vons markets.

The El Monte store’s produce department is one of the largest in the country--12,000 square feet--and it features a wide variety of fresh and dried vegetables, fruits, herbs and spices.

Depending on the season, there are anywhere from six to 15 varieties of fresh and as many as 30 types of dried chilies stacked in huge bins. Squashes run the gamut from the calabaza chayote (used in soup) to banana squash. Dried plums come in two flavors--plain and chili-coated.

Full beef and pork heads, teeth included, grin out of the butcher case, surrounded by other delicacies such as pickled pig lips, oxtails, pork skins, and beef and pork tongues.

Meats are usually cut thin to accommodate the cooking style, which is to simmer and stew. Because Tianguis butchers its own cows, Linskey said, it is one of the few markets in Los Angeles that sells fresh offal, such as beef marrow, kidney, brains, hearts and oxtails.

He said 90% of the Tianguis customers are Latino; 5% are Asian and 5% are “foodies,” most of whom live on the Westside.

“Foodies” include hotel chefs, caterers and members of culinary clubs who come to Tianguis for cheeses, spices, bakery goods and chilies.

“We can tell they are chefs or caterers because they buy in huge quantities,” Linskey said.

Tianguis’ major competition is not the major chains, but smaller specialty stores. The chains, says Linskey, cannot hope to compete with an on-site tortilla-maker, who on a good day may make 2,000 packages of three or five dozen.

“We try to beat the taquerilas, the little restaurants. We compare our bakery products not to Ralphs or Safeway, but to specialty markets.”