East Valley Business - 01.05.20

east valley

Volume 2 Issue 24 Mesa, AZ

January 5, 2020

Rancho de Tia Rosa makes grand return

Cory Lucas recently reopened Rancho de Tia Rosa on East McKellips Road, Northeast Mesa. He also owns the location on North Higley Road in Gilbert. (Chris Mortenson/Tribune Staff Photographer)

BY CHRISTINA FUOCO-KARASINSKI Tribune Staff Writer

C

IN THE BIZ

ory Lucas likes to say he just fell into the restaurant business. Perhaps he’s making a bigger impact than he thinks.

Lucas, who also owns the Gilbert location, revived Rancho de Tia Rosa after his Public Notices ............... page 3 © Copyright, 2020 East Valley Tribune

family purchased it in bankruptcy court and recently reopened the restaurant on McKellips Road.

“We purchased it from the bankruptcy court about four years ago,” he said. “It was gone. It wasn’t here. We had friends in the community tell us, ‘Hey, don’t let this go away.’

“So, my family, we went to the court (USPS 004-616) is published weekly

Mailing Address: 1620 W. Fountainhead Pkwy., Suite 219, Tempe, AZ 85282

(480) 898-6500 Steven Strickbine, publisher Paul Maryniak, executive editor

proceedings. The courts closed it and I thought, ‘This is an Arizona icon. This can’t happen.’”

Banners marking its return to the Mesa location were hung near McKellips Road until it opened with much fanfare.

Since it opened a few months ago, the 8,000-square-foot hacienda-style eatery

�ee RANCO DE TIA ROSA page 2

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RANCO DE TIA ROSA from page 1

has attracted diners with its healthful take on Mexican grub. It mixes elements of Baja-Coastal-style cuisines. Lucas said it’s hard to pinpoint a signature dish at the restaurant.

“We’re Baja Coastal,” he said. “It’s sweet with flavors of papaya, mango and pineapple.”

The “tried and true” is the chicken enchilada with green sauce ($3.99), which Lucas describes as “not hot and spicy but sweet coastal.” The grilled salmon steak ($18.99) is another favorite, but the shrimp tacos—or the shrimp and salmon tacos ($4.49)—are popular.

“We also have our award-winning chile relleno,” said Lucas about the dish that sells for $16.99. “It’s not your normal relleno. It’s not deep-fried. It is filled with delicious pork picadillo and has a beautiful presentation.”

For meat and potato lovers, there’s the ribeye steak ($26.99).

“It’s aged 28 days and we hand-cut it

right before grilling it to perfection,” Lucas said. “It’s our most expensive dish, so people initially think we’re just trying to sell them something expensive until they take their first bite. It’s USDA prime and amazing.

“We’re a Mexican food restaurant, but we also have wonderful chipotle mashed potatoes that are very good.”

The interior design and architecture will induce the feeling of beautiful cities in South-Central Guanajuato, Mexico, such as San Miguel de Allende and Cuernavaca.

Bright colors and natural light fill the dining room.

“There literally are no other restaurants that come anywhere near this amazing look and ambiance,” Lucas said. “We have all this detail. All the hand-made Mexican tiles and the custom chairs and tables. We

hand-carved the chairs to celebrate the ones that were here when Tia Rosa originally opened here years ago.

“We specifically designed and decorated to bring back the original Tia Rosa everyone has come to know and love. You don’t see properties built like this. It has so much detail. You walk around here for hours admiring it.”

The patio doors offer a sneak peek into a plot formerly a garden which Lucas is considering resurrecting. Greenhouses pepper the backyard. The massive parking lot, he said, would be perfect for a future farmers market.

“The community support is amazing,” he said. “People are so excited we’re back.

I see this as continuing to be the Arizona icon it has always been. The future is bright.”

If You Go...

Where: Rancho de Tia Rosa 3129 E. McKellips Road, Mesa Hours:11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday to Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday More info: 480-659-8787, ranchodetiarosa.com

EAST VALLEY BUSINESS

2

JANUARY 5, 2020

Thousands see wage raise across Arizona

BY HOWARD FISCHER Capitol Media Services

T

housands of Arizonans were in line for a wage bump Jan. 1, as the last phase in a 2016 voter-approved increase in the minimum wage kicked in.

It will take the bottom from $11 an hour to $12, adding an extra $2,080 for those working a full-time job. Exactly how many Arizonans are affected is unclear.

Among the largest group likely to see bigger paychecks are those who are in the personal care and service occupations.

The state figured there were more than 112,000 people at that time with a median wage of $11.61 an hour. That means half were making above that and half were making less.

Another nearly 48,000 personal care aides are in that wage category.

And there are other categories where the median wage last year was below $12 an hour, including more than 92,000 in retail sales, close to 49,000 waiters and waitresses, 12,500 counter attendants and 17,500 fast-food cooks.

The wage figures include tips. That’s crucial as the 2016 law allows employers to pay tipped workers up to $3 an hour less than the minimum – but only as long as what they ultimately get with those tips hits the mandates.

And it won’t be those now making less than $12 who will be affected. Any move that makes $12 the new minimum rung on the salary ladder is likely to force employers to increase the wages of more experienced workers who now are getting just $12 or slightly more.

Tomas Robles of Living United for Change in Arizona, the group that put the

Public Notice SUPERIOR COURT OF ARIZONA IN MARICOPA COUNTY (TRIBUNAL SUPERIOR DE ARIZONA EN TEL CONDADO DE MARICOPA) Case No. FC2019095671 Angelica Villalpando

issue on the ballot that scrapped the minimum of $8.05 an hour in 2016 said the higher wages helped get Arizonans closer to a “living wage.’

Noting rapidly rising rents, Robles said all that was accomplished without wrecking the economy as had been predicted by initiative foes.

“The industries that folks said would die off because of this minimum wage have not only been fine but actually have increased in income, employment, demand,’’ he said.

Since 2017, the average number of people employed by all private companies increased by 5.7 percent. And employment in bars and restaurants, which include fast-food establishments, pretty much kept-pace at 5.6 percent.

Garrick Taylor, spokesman for the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which opposed the 2016 measure -- and then unsuccessfully sued to have it voided -- does not dispute that the predictions of wholesale reductions in employment levels in certain industries have not materialized. But he said there’s a reason for that.

Taylor said he still believes that it is the people who are seeking jobs who will “bear the brunt of a policy that makes hiring more expensive.’’

But Taylor has more immediate concerns.

One is an initiative drive being financed by the California-based Service Employees International Union which, if approved in November, would mandate that everyone working at a hospital get an immediate 5 percent pay hike. Then there would be successive 5-percent pay increases for the following three years.

That would apply at all levels, includ-

Ceja, Petitioner. Francisco Ruan Venegas, Respondent.

FAMILY DEPARTMENT/ SENSITIVE DATA COVERSHEET WITH CHILDREN (DEPARTMENTO DE FAMILIA / HOJA DE INFORMCION CONFIDENCIAL CON HILOS) (Confidential Re-cord) / ((Registro Confidencial) Name Angelica

EAST VALLEY BUSINESS

ing medical staff, nurses, social workers, orderlies and even custodians. And with that $12 minimum beginning in January, that would put the base salary for hospital workers after the fourth year at $14.59.

Taylor said his organization will try to convince voters to reject the proposal.

Separately, Taylor objects to the fact that the 2016 law actually allows local communities to create their own minimum wages.

Flagstaff votes did that in a move that will put the floor in that city at $13 an hour this coming year, increasing automatically to $15.50 by 2022.

Robles pointed out that the 2016 law also requires employers to provide at least three paid leave days each year.

“We get phone calls all the time of people utilizing their paid sick days and being able to utilize those days for emergencies or other situations,’’ he said.

A study performed earlier this year by the Grand Canyon Institute concluded that since the wage law took effect in 2017 that there has been a 19 percent increase in food-service hourly pay.

The report did conclude, however, there was “some evidence’’ that the average hours worked by those in that sector of the economy “may have declined by about one hour per week.’’

Robles said that even with new minimum set at $12 an hour, it still does not provide a “living wage,’’ particularly for people in metro areas where housing prices, particularly rental rates, are increasing sharply.

For the Phoenix metro area, the web site Rent Jungle puts average monthly rent at $1,215. That is 18 percent higher than it was at the end of 2016.

Villlpando Ceja, Female, Date of Birth 06-05-73. Francisco Ruan Venegas, Male 01-17-69 Motion to Extend Dismissal Date (Pedimento para Extender la Fecha de Rechazo) I, Angelica Villlpando Ceja, re-quest an extension of the dismissal date because I have not been able to serve the other party or service is not

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complete. (No he podido notificar a la otra parte o la notification no esta completa.) Published: East Valley Tribune, Dec. 15, 22, 29, 2019, Jan. 5, 2020 / 26697

JANUARY 5, 2020

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