Business Is Booming for Latin Stores

Mi Tienda grocery store is a world away from Latin America.

But for more than a year, the small shop has brought the smells and tastes of distant lands to Thousand Oaks’ growing immigrant population.

Sandwiched between a Miller’s Outpost clothing outlet and a Wherehouse record store, it is the only place in the city where Latinos can find certain delicacies and spices.

Bags of pungent teas from Argentina and Brazil, yellow cherries from Guatemala, red olives from Peru and beer from Honduras line the shelves. “They say I need a certain food, but I also need someone who understands me,” said Mi Tienda’s owner, 54-year-old Laura Melgar, who opened the shop a year ago. “They come here and say, ‘Oh, good, I’m glad I don’t have to go to L.A. anymore.’ ”

Rene Rodriguez, a Puerto Rican businessman and 17-year city resident, said he has seen Latino-owned businesses mushroom in the past five years. The boom is remarkable in a city where more than four out of five people are Anglo, he said.

Several years ago, residents had to travel to Oxnard or the San Fernando Valley to find a Spanish-speaking shopkeeper, Rodriguez said.

Today, Latinos can find almost anything they need in Thousand Oaks: Latin American music, videos, food, even Spanish-speaking hairdressers and travel agents.

“Recently we’ve had an influx of Central and South Americans. Some of them are just catering to each other, they’re just starting services,” Rodriguez said. “Some of them are professional people who have left war-torn areas, just like the Cubans did in Florida.”

One of the newer shopkeepers is Gina Ahumada, 30, a Moorpark resident and owner of Latino Video on Thousand Oaks Boulevard.

She opened the store two years ago because her Moorpark customers said they were tired of visiting local stores and finding only English-language releases.

“I had a lot of customers who kept asking me, ‘Why don’t you have one in Thousand Oaks?’ ”

Her store offers about 1,400 videocassettes, most of them made in Mexico, as well as American movies with Spanish subtitles. Business has been so good that this week, Ahumada will open a meat market that specializes in cuts that Latinos prefer.

Mi Tienda’s Melgar, who also runs a beauty salon in Thousand Oaks, knows what it is like to travel for hours to Grand Central Market on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles.

At Melgar’s store, pinatas hang from the ceiling and rainbow-colored jackets from Guatemala are arrayed on a clothes rack.

The most popular spot is by the door, where customers can rifle through a rack of audiocassettes containing a heady mix of salsas, Mexican ballads and mariachi tunes.

Salma and Fidel Reyes, who moved to Thousand Oaks from Durango, Mexico, visit Mi Tienda every week. They enjoy buying familiar products that are printed with labels they can read.

On a recent shopping trip, Fidel picked up a bag of coffee-colored flax seeds used in an herbal remedy for an upset stomach.

“We can’t find these in other markets” in Thousand Oaks, Salma said. “That’s why we come here.”

Last year, when the shop opened, Melgar wasn’t sure which items would sell well. But customers have been quick to show her. Recently, because they have been asking for special cuts of meat and poultry, she decided that she would put in a meat counter.

The store also serves as a clearinghouse for information. She has distributed phone numbers for Los Angeles-based attorneys who help immigrants secure work permits and visas.

“Sometimes they come back and say, ‘Thanks to you, I have my work permit,’ ” Melgar said.