Southwest Colorado’s only Mexican grocery store offers flavors of home
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CORTEZ, Colo. — “Salsa, what kind? Green, red, or fire?” asked Esmeralda Estrada.
The customers chose the fire salsa, and Estrada suggested they have it on the side — just to be safe.
Esmeralda’s Ranchito is the only Mexican grocery store in southwest Colorado. Inside, customers find imported Mexican candies, a wall of spices, colorful paper decorations, piñatas hanging from the ceiling, and freshly made tamales.
With nearly 20% of Cortez's population identifying as Hispanic, the store offers a taste of home for many — and good burritos for everyone.
Video: Ziyi Xu, Rocky Mountain PBS
Estrada grew up in Jalisco, Mexico, and moved to Colorado in 2000. She fell in love with the Four Corners region, settled in Cortez, raised a family and started a cleaning business.
The town’s previous Mexican grocery store, called Don Vic’s, closed in February 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and put the business up for sale. Estrada saw an opportunity. She bought the store and gradually added items and decorations to shape it into what it is today.
“My kids, they love Mexican candy. And the closest place we have to get those is going all the way to Farmington. It’s one hour and 30 minutes to go that way,” said Estrada. “So when we knew that we could put Mexican candies here, that was a pretty good idea. The customers also love Mexican candy with the spicy in it.”
Shelves of candy are on display throughout the store, with even more by the checkout. Because the candy is imported directly from Mexico, recent tariff increases have raised prices by $1.50, Estrada said.
She said the community understands the challenge and has taken the price hike well.
On April 5, the Trump administration implemented a baseline tariff of 10% on nearly all foreign imports to the United States. Some countries are facing higher “reciprocal” tariffs, though those have mostly been paused for 90 days as of April 9.
Most goods from Mexico will be subject to a 25% tariff, unless covered by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which focuses on intellectual property and digital trade.
With tariffs constantly shifting, many international grocery stores are struggling — especially Asian markets, as several Asian countries are among the hardest hit by tariffs.
“The first day we [opened] the store, I was pretty nervous because I never do anything in the kitchen,” she said.
When Estrada took over, the store came with a commercial kitchen. While she had retail experience from Mexico, running a kitchen was something new.
Today, she has five women working at the store — some from her former cleaning business. Her daughter helps out occasionally. Their day begins at 5 a.m. when they prepare breakfast burritos for early morning workers. Every day, they make 300 tamales and 35,000 flour tortillas.
“It is hard to be busy back in the kitchen and trying to take care of our customers,” Estrada said.
“Do you want a spoon or fork?” she asked a customer.
“How about a spork?” the customer replied.
Estrada laughed. “I promise I’ll get some of those for you next time.”
Since opening the store, Estrada said she has come to know almost everyone in the community. Some customers even travel from Durango and Dolores to shop.
“Sometimes we struggle with speaking English with our customers,” she said. “But when we ask two, three times, they start speaking Spanish with us and [we’re] just like, ‘oh my goodness!’”
Estrada didn’t expect so many locals to speak Spanish. She said some learned the language during travels to Spanish-speaking countries and now enjoy practicing the language at her store.
“I never thought I'm going to have a store someday. When I came here, I thought, ‘I'm going to get married, have kids, and that'll be it.’”
For Estrada, the biggest challenge has been owning a store and kitchen as a woman. She didn’t see many women in the business and was nervous negotiating with suppliers at first. But after closing her first deal, she realized all she had to do was keep showing up.
“I never thought I [could] do something like this. And now that I know I can, it makes me feel good. It’s inspirational.”
When the store’s banda music played, Estrada swung to the rhythm and hummed along.
“When the Hispanic people come in, they’re like, ‘oh my goodness, we feel like we’re in Mexico because you have the music, the food, and the candy, and people speaking Spanish,’” she said. “I think that gives us a part of Mexico for us.”
Type of story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
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