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Patience, work ethic drive restaurant owner Rafael Alvarado lays strong foundation for Medford�s newest Mexican food eatery By Chris Bristol Is Medford ready for another Mexican restaurant? Rafael Alvarado thinks so. The native of Jalisco state in central Mexico started his first restaurant five years ago in Central Point, fulfilling every immigrant�s dream of economic freedom. His new restaurant in Medford shares the same name as his first, El Albanil. El Albanil is Spanish for The Bricklayer. The name implies Alvarado�s philosophy of doing business, laying down a solid foundation brick by brick. "My grandfather was a bricklayer, and I always respected him for his hard work," he says. Formerly known as Young�s Corner Cafe, the distinctive-looking lavender-and-white restaurant at the corner of downtown Sixth and Grape streets opened two weeks ago. The menu is surprisingly large and ambitious, with most entrees averaging from $7 to $9. With 15-plus tables, many of them booths, the decor is simple but tasteful. Alvarado is proud of his food, which he advertises as fresh and authentic. He won�t talk up one dish over another (the camarones a la crema, or prawns in cream sauce, sounds particularly good) because to him it�s all good. "For us, everything is the best," he says proudly. "In this business, the kitchen is the most important thing." A self-described farm boy, Alvarado got his start in the business 21 years ago as a dishwasher in Seattle. By 1995, tired of crowding and crime in the Puget Sound area, he and his wife, Rosario, briefly moved to Baker City before settling in Central Point. Rosario Alvarado does most of the cooking at the Medford restaurant. The couple have a son who is starting first grade this week. Members of the extended family are running the Central Point restaurant. Business at the Central Point El Albanil was slow at first, Alvarado says, due in no small part to the tiny restaurant�s hole-in-the-wall location. It began to improve about two years ago once he got a liquor license and started serving margaritas. On that note, he has several tips for anyone who is thinking about going into the restaurant business. Experience: "You need to know how to do everything. If you know how to manage (money, staff) but you don�t know how to cook, that�s trouble." Vision: "When you get a place, you have to change some things," particularly with regard to decor. "You have to say, �This is going to work. This is not going to work.�" Advertising: "This is very important. I�ve got radio ads running on two English stations and one Spanish station. Plus I have the ad in the newspaper." Liquor license: "Most of our customers want a margarita or a beer with their dinner. They expect it." As anybody who has ever owned a small business knows, the hours can be brutal. But Alvarado is determined not to burn out, noting he shut down the Central Point restaurant for 10 days in January to take his family on vacation to Jalisco. "Our customers are like family," he says. "They understand we need a vacation sometimes." The location of his new restaurant in Medford is decent but not great, he acknowledges. The downtown area tends to be dead at night, and most of the eateries in the area are grouped together several blocks away on Front Street. For the time being, he plans to concentrate on the lunch crowd. Hundreds of people who work downtown can walk to his place in less than five or 10 minutes. Business has been better than he expected so far but certainly not overwhelming, he says. It should improve once he gets the liquor license. Even if the business takes off, he says this is as ambitious as he ever plans to get. Unlike his first restaurant, which he started with his own savings, a bank is backing him this time. It makes him nervous. "I don�t want to get deep in trouble with money," he says. "For now, this is enough." Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA