Giovanna Villalpando has found a new home for her family business, La Catrina, nestled in a shipping container retail park in southeast Fort Worth.
Inside the shop, the walls are painted a deep black and contrasted with a white Mexican folk art design called Otomi. The hand-painted white lines curve and loop around the shop, guiding the eyes through the store. The original folk design uses an abundance of colors, but these black and white walls help the vibrant Mexican pottery, stationery, clothing accessories and other knickknacks stand out.
“I’ve always been a big fan of letting the product do the talking,” said La Catrina owner Villalpando, who is originally from a small town called Tacoaleche in Zacatecas, Mexico.
A hand-painted welcome sign with talavera design stands in front of the new La Catrina Mexican shop location on Sept. 11, 2026. (Mica Magday | Fort Worth Report)
La Catrina Mexican shop owner Giovanna Villalpando holds up a calaca figure being sold on Sept. 11, 2026. (Mica Magday | Fort Worth Report)
After operating out of Ridgmar Mall for nearly four years, Villalpando has opened a new location in the Connex container retail park in Fort Worth’s Historic Southside, off East Rosedale Street.
The move comes after a Dallas-based private equity firm announced its acquisition of the mall over the summer. The company plans to redevelop the site into a logistics hub.
Villalpando is looking forward to the shop’s new chapter.
La Catrina’s new location opened in early September and is in a “soft launch” period, where the store is still adding its final touches before announcing consistent operating hours. Weekly hours can be found on the shop’s Instagram page.
While Villalpando is moving across Fort Worth, the mission to preserve the work of Mexican artisans and celebrate the culture remains. She hopes to inspire other Latino-owned businesses to establish themselves in the area like she has and proudly display their culture and tradition.
“I just really want to create something meaningful here in Fort Worth,” she said. “My biggest thing is always bringing Mexican culture and screaming it as loud as I can.”
A display of nicho boxes, candles and other knickknacks in La Catrina Mexican shop on Sept. 11, 2026. (Mica Magday | Fort Worth Report)
A nicho or shadow box in La Catrina Mexican shop on Sept. 11, 2026. (Mica Magday | Fort Worth Report)
This was Villalpando’s goal since she originally opened shop at Ridgmar Mall. On top of the Mexican snacks and candy she sold, La Catrina also hosted small business vendor markets that still attracted fans to the mall’s dwindling audience.
One local who took notice at the time was Carla Salazar, the former Latinx Student Association president at Texas Wesleyan University. She partnered with Villalpando to start a new Texas Wesleyan tradition — the Hispanic Heritage Month kickoff Pulga de LSA, or LSA flea market, on their campus.
When Salazar was looking for potential vendors, she was instantly drawn to Villalpando. She found that the former Texas Wesleyan student was intentional about showcasing the culture and story behind each piece.
“I feel like a lot of the time with businesses that sell things like she does, behind the brand there is a person managing that just wants money — to profit off of our community,” Salazar said. “With her, I saw that there was passion there, that she grew up with the same struggles and same things that we go through as Latinos.”
Starting the business was an opportunity that came unexpectedly to Villalpando. She left her job in corporate human resources after five years to help open La Catrina at Ridgmar as a way to expand her father’s business distributing Mexican candy, chips and cleaning supplies. When they noticed the mall and surrounding area lacked a Mexican store, they discovered an opportunity to fill what they saw as a gap.
“It is a family business, you know. I may be the one running and the one on social media, but my parents and my husband are very involved,” Villalpando said.
Her parents help with embroidering or customizing items, traveling to Mexico to source and import products and running the store. Her husband helps with the heavy lifting and back-end jobs like website operation and camera setups.
Their momentum was interrupted by the news of Ridgmar’s demolition. Sales plummeted, with the entire store selling just $5 worth of merchandise, Villalpando said.
“It was really hard to be positive,” she explained. “Person after person comes in saying, ‘This mall used to be so good. What happened? How are you guys still here? Who pays the lights? How are you in business? Do you make money?’”
In the midst of the difficulty, Villalpando decided to pay Deloulou Café, a coffee shop in the Connex container retail park, a visit. While sipping her coffee, she looked around and saw vacant spaces ready for business.
“Then it was like a light bulb,” she said. “I can run a space here.”
With the support of her family and friends, she smoothly transitioned into the new space in Fort Worth’s Historic Southside neighborhood. They hauled new shelves, tables and merchandise and quickly made the space her own.
Handmade clay shot glasses displayed in La Catrina Mexican new location on Sept. 11, 2026. (Mica Magday | Fort Worth Report)
Villalpando hopes the new location will create a warm, nostalgic feeling where customers can seek out the type of authentic tableware they used to find in their abuelita’s home as a child.
She also emphasized that she wants the space to feel welcoming to those unfamiliar with Mexican culture, encouraging curiosity and questions about her products.
“How pieces were made, where they come from, their origins, how to use them,” Villalpando said. “I think at the end of the day, sure, we’re all about ‘Sell, sell, sell,’ but it’s also the connections that you make. If you don’t have community, you don’t have anything.”
Villalpando plans to eventually gather local Latino-owned businesses at the retail park for community vendor markets like she did in Ridgmar. The original La Catrina location will stay open until demolition of the mall begins.
Salazar hopes that La Catrina’s new establishment empowers the surrounding community and spreads Mexican culture.
A monarch butterfly is displayed in La Catrina’s new location on Sept. 11, 2026. (Mica Magday | Fort Worth Report)
“It’s kind of like a butterfly effect. One person learns something about a culture, they share it with the rest of the people they know — that’s how it grows and how awareness grows as well,” Salazar said. “I think that is what is needed. She’s breaking these boundaries by (giving) the people coming into the shop an opportunity to learn and grow.”
Mica Magday is a reporting fellow for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at mica.magday@fortworthreport.com.
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