ONLY IN AMERICA Diners can thank Mexican trade agreement for chain of Puerto Vallarta restaurants BY KEVIN ZIMMERMAN kzimmerman@westfairinc.com
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iscerning diners can thank GATT for the expanding Puerto Vallarta chain of Mexican restaurants. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which Mexico approved in 1986 to restructure its economy — thereby leading to closer ties with the U.S. — had enough of a devastating effect on rural Mexico that Esaul Rodriguez, founder and owner of the chain, said he was forced to move north. GATT “killed the local economy in Jalisco,” Rodriguez’s hometown, he said at his 98 Newtown Road restaurant in Danbury. “Corn, sugarcane, even cattle prices fell drastically, so a lot of us emigrated to the United States.” Then only 16, Rodriguez ended up in Seattle, where he began working at his
uncle’s Mexican restaurant. Within five years, he said, he had moved up from busser to cook, eventually learning not just how to create many of the dishes on the menu but also the logistics of running a business. Five years later, with his brother Juan — still his business partner — Rodriguez opened his own eatery in Coos Bay, Oregon. “But the city had the highest unemployment rate in Oregon — 19, 20%,” he said. “And it seemed like there was a Mexican restaurant on every block.” Flirting with Idaho (“I didn’t have a great feeling about it.”) and Utah (“A lot of Mormons, who, of course, don’t drink coffee, tea or alcohol.”) led nowhere, so Rodriguez went to the library and found that Connecticut at the time had the highest per-capita income. Thus was the first Puerto Vallarta, in West Hartford, born in 2000.
Puerto Vallarta founder and owner Esaul Rodriguez at his restaurant at 98 Newtown Road in Danbury.
Since then Puerto Vallartas have popped up in Newington, Middletown, Southington, Avon, Orange and, in 2016, Danbury. The chain’s next location will be at 2000 Blackrock Turnpike in Fairfield, sometime between Aug. 15 and 20, “depending on how the work goes,” Rodriguez said. “We’re 99% done now.”
The 6,000-square-foot Fairfield site, at the former location of Bear and Grill, will include a 1,000-squarefoot patio that alone can hold 100, in addition to the approximately 300 who can sit indoors. Rodriguez said he’s spent about $2 million on the Fairfield location — not to mention about 15 years. “We have been very inter-
ested in Fairfield for a long time,” he said. “But there is a certain amount of square footage that we prefer, the parking lot is very important, the street and the rent has to be right.” Population, income and support for neighboring businesses are all factors in deciding where to open, Rodriguez said. “We are not the most expensive place to eat, but we’re not the least expensive either,” he said. “Our feeling is that if you’re in an area where other places are doing well, you are likely to do well. If the nearby places are doing badly, your chances of doing well are not so great.” Along with Juan, two other Rodriguez brothers — Esaul is the sixth of 10 siblings — are involved with managing the growing Puerto Vallarta empire. All came to the U.S. at different times, again driven by GATT’s impact on the Mexican economy.
As for what sets his restaurants apart, Rodriguez — who still develops most of the chain’s recipes — pointed to a focus on freshness and high-quality ingredients, along with fast and friendly service. Factors like those “have turned us into a destination for a lot of people,” he said. “We get customers here (in Danbury) not just from the rest of the county but from New Rochelle, Queens, even Brooklyn.” Asked whether there are more Puerto Vallartas to come, Rodriguez grinned. “We’re always looking to grow,” he said, “and as we continue to develop from a sort of mom-and-pop organization to one that’s more corporate we could explore franchising. We’re looking at all the options. I’d like to get into New York state, if not necessarily New York City. But right now we’re happy where we are.”
Fairfield County home prices dropping from Bridgeport to Stamford BY ALEXANDER SOULE Hearst Connecticut Media Group
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ome prices continued to decline in southern Fairfield County in the second quarter, among the few pockets nationally to experience deflation in the residential market even as sellers hope for a rebound following the Federal Reserve’s recent interest rate cut. The National Association of Realtors calculated the median-price home sale in the Bridgeport-Stamford corridor at $470,000, down 0.6 percent from the equivalent home sold in the second quarter of last year. That compared with a 4.3 percent gain in the New London area, with the median home in the New Haven-
Milford corridor selling for $248,000, 3.9 percent more than the peer property a year ago. Hartford’s median price was up 2.1 percent to $244,000. Connecticut’s statewide sales have yet to reach levels at the height of the previous economic boom in 2007, even as sales in New York have surpassed them and as new apartments have mushroomed for millennials on the cusp of searching for permanent homes. “In general, the high end in each town is moving very slowly (but) the entry level in the towns is moving,” said Deb Alderson, a Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices New England Properties broker who is president of the Mid-Fairfield County Association of Realtors. “Our
business usually picks up in September for a short period and I hope it does again this year. Rates are unbelievably low right now and there are so many mortgage products out there right now. It is a great time to purchase a home.” Home prices were generally stunted in higher price metropolitan areas in the Northeast and nationally, with NAR citing a $10,000 cap on IRS deductions for local property taxes as a contributing factor, with the new rule taking effect last year for taxpayers who itemize deductions. Fairfield County transactions were down 4 percent in the second quarter, with pockets of growth in some municipalities, including Danbury and Redding. Across the metropoli-
tan New York City region that includes northern New Jersey, Long Island and portions of the Hudson Valley, NAR calculated the median home price rising a scant 1.2 percent, while the Boston area generated just a 2.2 percent increase. But in outlying population centers in the Northeast, home prices have easily outpaced Connecticut’s gains, with Springfield, Massachusetts, seeing more than double Hartford’s bump at 5.1 percent. Providence, Rhode Island, was well above New London at 7.4 percent and the price of the median home sold in Burlington, Vermont, surged more than 10 percent from a year earlier, one of just 10 locales nationally to see a double-digit percentage gain.
Outside of Boston and Connecticut, all eight of the other New England population centers tracked by NAR saw median home prices rise at least 5 percent. Last month, a firm that runs a home value appraisal platform predicted that home prices will drop another 1.7 percent in the Bridgeport-Stamford region in the coming year, the second steepest decline in the nation after Grand Forks, North Dakota. Banks in Connecticut and elsewhere have dropped their prime lending rates on the heels of the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point. In the past several weeks, regional Fed presidents have referenced a struggle by the central bank on whether to
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cut rates aggressively now to counterbalance the effect of the U.S. trade disputes and other macroeconomic factors, or to wait until the economy is veering toward recession. “The expectation of lower interest rates in the future lowers yields on bonds and thereby fosters more favorable financial conditions overall,” said New York Fed CEO John Williams, speaking at a New York City conference. “This will allow the stimulus to pick up steam, support economic growth over the medium term and allow inflation to rise.” Includes prior reporting by Paul Schott. Alexander Soule is a staff reporter with Hearst Connecticut Media. He can be reached at Alex.Soule@ scni.com or 203-842-2545.
AUGUST 19, 2019
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