Vallarta Supermarkets, a popular Southern Californian Latino grocery chain, has opened its first location outside of the state.<\/p>\n
The chain, founded in Van Nuys and headquartered in Santa Clarita, operates more than 60 locations across California. On Wednesday, it opened its first outlet outside the state in Arizona.<\/p>\n
The store, located in Glendale, a suburb of Phoenix, Ariz., offers Mexican and other Latin American staples, including tortillas, pan dulce, agua frescas and ceviches \u201cprepared in small batches throughout the day,\u201d according to a statement<\/a> from the company. <\/p>\n The store\u2019s carnicer\u00eda offers marinated meats, and the cremer\u00eda features queso fresco and cotija. <\/p>\n Its hot, cooked meals, popular in the Californian outlets, will also be sold. <\/p>\n The grand opening featured mariachi performances and a grocery giveaway and marked a \u201chuge milestone\u201d for Vallarta Supermarkets, spokesperson Lizette Gomez said. <\/p>\n Gomez said the supermarket has a goal of opening about five new locations per year and is actively eyeing expansions in more states.<\/p>\n \u201cThis will lead the example for the rest,\u201d Gomez said. <\/p>\n Within California, the company intends to open locations in Rancho Cucamonga, Bellflower, and San Jose soon. <\/p>\n In 2025, it opened stores in Modesto, Colton, Park Mesa Heights and Hemet. <\/p>\n Gomez credited the company\u2019s success to its focus on catering to its customer base.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re humble, we keep to our roots, we listen to our customers, we bring home to them, wherever they\u2019re from,\u201d Gomez said. <\/p>\n For instance, the supermarket offers everything from sushi to freshly-cut fruit served with taj\u00edn and chamoy, inspired by fruit vendors, she said.<\/p>\n Gomez said the Glendale outpost, one of its smaller locations, has created about 140 full and part-time jobs. <\/p>\n The Glendale outpost is located at the site of a former Goodwill, according to Google Street View history.<\/p>\n Vallarta Supermarkets traces its roots to the 1980s, when Mexican immigrant Enrique Gonzalez Sr. opened a small meat market in Van Nuys. <\/p>\n Under the leadership of his son Enrique Gonzalez Jr., the company added locations across Los Angeles, focusing on serving Latino customers<\/a>. <\/p>\n The company is still owned by the Gonzalez family, according to Gomez. <\/p>\n Vallarta isn\u2019t the only Southern California grocery chain rapidly expanding its footprint. <\/p>\n In December, Trader Joe\u2019s bought a Santa Monica store space<\/a> and opened a Costa Mesa location.<\/a> That month, the Monrovia-based grocer also opened stores in Texas, Virginia, New York and South Carolina.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vallarta Supermarkets, a popular Southern Californian Latino grocery chain, has opened its first location outside of the state.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,1804,68381,68134,68380,10407,51912,63,484,5837,15275,225,38586,68151,24923],"class_list":["post-133671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-company","tag-customer-base","tag-first-location","tag-first-store","tag-glendale","tag-gomez","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-modesto","tag-park-mesa-heights","tag-root","tag-state","tag-supermarket","tag-vallarta-supermarkets","tag-van-nuys"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}