Celebrating 30 Years of Family and Good Food

Victor Avila’s business advice usually goes hand-in-hand with the taco dinners he sells.

Customers are constantly begging him for the secret to his family’s success story, a six-store restaurant chain that opened 30 years ago today after his immigrant father injured his back and was forced out of work at a Huntington Park foundry.

Taking time out with the regulars at his Long Beach location of Avila’s El Ranchito, Victor’s advice is always the same: Think small.

“Our beginning was a humble beginning, but that’s also part of our success,” said Avila, 47, one of five brothers and sisters to follow their father north from Guanajuato, Mexico, in 1958. “It taught us in a slow process . . . to deal with growth.”

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While his point may be well taken among his customers seeking to make their fortune, some members of his family instead attribute their accomplishments to a combination of secret spices, family unity and divine benevolence.

“It was a lot of work,” said Victor’s mother, Margarita, who has prepared her rice, beans and chicken soup for a generation of customers. “It takes a lot of years.”

The Avilas are toasting their long journey today by rolling back some prices to their original menu listings in 1966. From 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., at every location from the original stand in Huntington Park to the recently opened restaurant in Corona del Mar, customers are being offered two-taco combination plates for just $1.50.

Salvador Avila, patriarch of the El Ranchito chain, remembers well the day he opened for business 30 years ago on a $2,000 bank loan that his uncle had to co-sign. Operating next to a liquor store he would later buy out, Salvador says he made just $13 in sales that first day.

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It was too early to hire helpers, so Margarita had to manage the kitchen until their children returned from school to help serve food and clear tables. When there was money to hire more employees, however, some of the earliest of them proved so loyal that they still work for the family.

Salvador added his surname to the restaurant to distinguish it from several other El Ranchitos in the area. That label carried over when in 1973 Victor and another brother joined to open the second of the chain in Long Beach.

Soon other sons and daughters wanted in, and a system developed where each family member helped to open a new location. But with the time demands involved, such undertakings had to be carefully planned.

“We always take into consideration how [the business] is going to affect our immediate family,” Victor said. “We realize that we can buy more places but we cannot buy more [family] time.”

Daughter Maria Elena, 43, stands out as the family’s menu innovator, an unenviable role in traditional Mexican cuisine. She takes care to protect things like her mother’s rice recipe, which she says absolutely must include freshly prepared chicken broth. But other things like the refried beans proved negotiable, she said.

“I’m the one who took over the kitchen from my mom,” Maria Elena said. “I’m still using some of the same sauces and all that, but I’m sort of developing light cuisine.”

Many of her low-cholesterol innovations have made their way into the catering operation run out of each restaurant. Under her supervision, the Avilas now provide food for traditional Mexican affairs as well as business lunches and private celebrations.

The entire family now lives in Corona del Mar, with all of Salvador’s and Margarita’s sons and daughters within a mile or so of them. This makes for comfortable business meetings as the family gathers over breakfast to discuss future expansion projects.

Victor said advantages come about from integrating the family in business decisions as well as maintaining a certain independence.

For instance, he said, one of his brothers provides construction advice just as he provides financial counseling. And every time a new restaurant opens, Salvador and Margarita set up the kitchen while Maria Elena reviews the menu.

A certain distance must always be kept, however, when it comes to restaurant ownership. Previous sibling partnerships have taught the Avilas that two brothers do not function well as partners.

Victor said the no-partnerships rule has less to do with prosperity than with stability: “This will keep peace within the family.”