When Sergio and Mayra De Leon first thought about opening a Hispanic grocery store and restaurant more than two decades ago, people tried to dissuade the couple, claiming that Spokane's Hispanic community wasn't big enough to support it.
"Everybody likes Hispanic products. Everybody eats Mexican food," Sergio De Leon would reply.
Today, the couple run De Leon Foods, with locations on North Division and in Spokane Valley, and three locations of De Leon's Taco & Bar across Spokane. In Coeur d'Alene, they also operate De Leon's Tex Mex Grill and Terraza Waterfront by De Leon's, the latter of which they recently took over.
"A lot of people would actually go all the way to the Tri Cities to pick up their products or ingredients for their recipes," Sergio says of Spokane's Hispanic food scene two decades ago. "So we took an idea from my parents from Portland, and we brought it to Spokane and created our first grocery store."
Nearly 20 years later, the De Leons' business decision has proven a fourfold success, winning the categories of Best Housemade Salsa, Best Burritos, Best Mexican Food and Best International Market in this year's Inlander Readers Poll.
Just as the community has supported their ventures over the years, the De Leons aim to enrich Spokane's cultural diversity with their Mexican culinary ventures.
Their De Leon Foods location in Spokane Valley, which opened in 2016, is now the main production site for their house tortillas, tamales, chips, burritos and salsas, to name just a few of their branded products. The tortillas are made with grain grown by local farmers, and are used by 37 school districts around the region in student lunches.
Other local restaurants and grocery stores also buy their products, an example of De Leon's collaborative spirit with other businesses.
"A lot of other [Mexican] restaurants see each other as competition, but to us we don't see them as competition, but we see them as potential customers where they can buy our product, our tortillas, our chips," De Leon says.
Further testament of this are the 36 cafes across Spokane and North Idaho that buy burritos wholesale from De Leon Foods.
De Leon Foods also offers catering services for various events from weddings to private parties. Notably, they cater every other year for Fairchild Air Force Base's SkyFest, feeding up to 3,000 people. For those seeking a caterer on a budget, order a set amount of food for pick up at one of De Leon's grocery stores. Might as well stock up on a piñata or other goodies while you're there!
"We want to thank our community for voting for us. We want to also thank our staff for being there for us," De Leon says. "I mean, the reason we're here is because mostly our staff in each location have worked so hard."
BEST BURRITOS
2nd PLACE: Taco Vado
3rd PLACE: Atilano's
BEST HOUSEMADE SALSA
2nd PLACE: Taco Vado
3rd PLACE: Cochinito Taqueria
BEST MEXICAN FOOD
2nd PLACE: Tecate Grill
3rd PLACE: Rancho Chico
NORTH IDAHO'S BEST:
Nadine's Mexican Kitchen,
Rathdrum
BEST INTERNATIONAL MARKET
2nd PLACE: Asian World
Food Market
3rd PLACE: Best Asian Market
