Taste the Mango- 100% Real Fruit

Tuesday, 09 February 2010 02:02

South Tucson, Ariz. is usually the place to find great Mexican food and traditional eateries, but one businessman headed north to start his in the Tucson Mall and has been successfully selling edible culture to patrons of all ethnicities for seven years.

Originally from Michoacan, Mex., Alex Santoyo, 47, was raised in Chicago, Ill. After he moved to Tucson, he and his wife went to get a raspado on the Southside and says he waited for 30 minutes to consume a mediocre product.

“I know how to do it better so I came to the Tucson Mall and said ‘You know what? I want to open one in here.'” said Santoyo.  "And I did."

Paradise Aguas Frescas Raspados is so popular that people often crowd around the menu and create a blockage for those walking by. They stand in line and purchase not only fruit raspados but also different snacks like Tostitos with verdura, queso de nachos, jalapeños or even cacahuates y serpentinas. His newest addition is a menu of different large tortas to compliment his aguas frescas.

Santoyo says that about 60 percent of his visitors are Hispanic, but believes that the other 40 percent is a mixture of races.

Often times snow cones are made with artificial flavoring, but those that Santoyo sell are made slightly different.

“(Our) raspados, it’s fruit, it is one hundred percent fruit,” said Santoyo.  “It's why it is very delicious. If you taste a strawberry snow cone, it’s strawberry! If you taste a mango snow cone, it’s mango!” 

By carefully choosing each fruit, Santoyo can create his masterpieces. According to him and his clients, it is the quality that keeps them coming back.

“One thing that I learned from my business… (when) you taste something, even if you are way far, you’ll come back again,” said Santoyo.

“It reminds me of home,” says Lupe Valadez, 28, from Guanajuato, Mex., who has lived in Tucson for about five years and says she stops by almost every Saturday to at least one of Santoyo's restaurants. “I like them all but the strawberry is the one I order the most.”

Today, Santoyo's idea of placing an ethnic eatery in a typical American commercial area has led to a long-term hit and the opening of two other locations. Michoacán, on Prince and Flowing Wells, is a mixture of a longer list of food items and his raspados.

Paradise Mexican Fruit, opened two months ago in the Arizona Mills Mall in Tempe, Ariz., has had such demand that Santoyo needs three cash registers to operate it. 

“I sell a lot of raspados, a lot.” says Santoyo.

Written by Matilde Cantero You are reading Taste the Mango- 100% Real Fruit articles