Guadalajara Restaurant opens new dining area, kitchen

Ramiro and Lupe Vazquez bought Guadalajara Restaurant six years ago because they liked the homemade Mexican food.

With no previous restaurant experience, they could not have dreamed that in June they would open an expansion to their successful downtown Muscatine restaurant with a third dining room and brand new commercial kitchen.

The Vazquezes, who own all three buildings on E. Second Street that now house Guadalajara on the ground floor, first considered an expansion when they found out that Snackers 2, a former breakfast and lunch shop run by Goodwill of the Heartland, would be moving out of the third building.

"Once the main person contacted us and said they were moving, then we really looked into it," Lupe Vazquez said. "I always wanted a new kitchen ... different layout, and back here [in the old kitchen it] was a little harder to do because ... it would have meant closing for a little while. So we thought, 'what if we moved the kitchen to that area and then expand there?'"

North Construction in Muscatine also owned by the Vazquezes, who live in Muscatine did all of the construction work on the new building, which took eight months to complete. The expansion, which opened in June, includes the commercial kitchen with a walk-in cooler, and 13 new tables in the dining area, some of which are larger booths that seat eight. The new area also boasts high ceilings, four flat screen TVs, and a large window for patrons to see into the kitchen.

Juan Periaez of Muscatine, a cook at Guadalajara, said the kitchen staff is happy in their new cooking quarters.

"We can get organized better and easier," he said. "There's more coordination so we can do things a lot faster."

Maribel Ruiz of Muscatine is one of the restaurant's managers and said customers have made positive comments on the new section.

"There is more seating area, so people don't really have to wait that long," she said. "Sometimes it gets really busy."

When the Vazquezes first bought Guadalajara, they employed two waitresses and one cook at the former location on the other side of 2nd Street. Today, they have four cooks, a 24-person wait staff and can serve up to 232 customers at full capacity.

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Guadalajara Restaurant opens new dining area, kitchen