Recipe for successful business includes determination, delicious food
From fried tamales to piñatas, Los Reyes on Main Street in Collinsville offers a little bit of everything. Fresh produce and cheeses, many of which can't be found anywhere else in Collinsville, bring in local customers and visitors to the area.
The grocery sells fresh-cut meat and Mexican spices, along with beans, rice, tortillas, tasty sweets, as well as laundry detergent and other household items.
Los Reyes, open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day, offers everything a small grocery store would have except some of the labels are in Spanish, and the candy might be on the spicy side.
Behind the grocery section is a small restaurant with booths from wall to wall. They serve authentic Mexican food and drinks such as tamales, sopes, tacos, popsicles and aguas frescas. The restaurant also hard-to-find traditional favorites such as "la lengua" or beef tongue.
Beatriz Chavez and her husband Ernesto Linares opened the Mexican grocery and restaurant on July 4, 1997.
In 1995, Chavez moved with her sisters to the United States to join her parents who had been living in Gainesville, Georgia, since 1985. Her parents, Jose and Josefina Bonilla, relocated to the United States to create more opportunities for their disabled daughter, Chavez’s sister Ivonne Chavez.
The family moved to Albertville, Alabama, in 1993 where Chavez’s parent opened the first Mexican grocery store in the area, La Orquidea.
Chavez met her husband Ernesto working as a cashier in her parents’ store. He drove from Georgia to shop at the Mexican grocery store, and the pair hit it off. “When I decided to get married in 1995, my husband and I wanted to open our own business, so we decided to move to Collinsville. We wanted to open a small business here,” Chavez said.
After the success of Los Reyes in Collinsville, the couple was able to open another location in Fort Payne and continue to grow their business.
“Our food is authentic Mexican food. We have a lot of American customers, and they love our food,” said Chavez, gesturing to the patrons sitting in booths enjoying lunch.
Though the community of Collinsville loves Los Reyes for its delicious food, popsicles, and authentic Mexican merchandise, the reception of Mexican immigrants in Southern communities has not always been so positive.
Chavez and her family experienced hostility when they first started attending school and opened the family business.
“My family opened a small grocery store. That building had two big windows. People broke them several times. Sometimes they threw eggs at the windows and trash in the parking lot. We had a bad, bad experience in those years until the Hispanic community started growing, and people started accepting us here,” said Chavez quietly.
Chavez and her sisters knew almost no English when they came to the states, and the local schools were unprepared for non-English speaking students, especially in Albertville where Chavez and her sister Judith Bonilla were the only two Hispanic girls in the class.
The two struggled to learn English and could not understand the instruction in class. On top of that, some of their classmates were mean and would yell slurs and make nasty comments, she said.
Despite the racism they experienced, Chavez and her family were determined to make Alabama their home. About four years later, they noticed a shift in community attitudes toward Hispanic immigrants.
“We started noticing, you know, people just being nice. Well, even when we first got there, there were good people, too, but I think they started getting nicer after four years,” she explained.
“In my opinion, I think right now everything is fine. Things have already changed. I hope everyone will just be nice to every traveler. From our side, you know, the Latin American people, the white people, just being nice to one another.”
Chavez said she loves her home and the life she built with her husband and family. She said the town is safe and tight-knit, and she hopes her children will continue living close by. “It’s a good place to live, Collinsville. I love the place where I live.”
She picked the name Los Reyes for her business on Main Street partly after her father’s surname Reyes, but mostly for her children.
“Los Reyes mean “the kings.” In that time, when I first started, my husband and I were talking about having kids, and they were going to be our kings, so we just decided to put ‘The Kings’ in the name,” Chavez said with a smile.
Tags: Collinsville
