Northgate González Market Has Become a Whole New Scene in Orange County
Northgate González Market, one of the largest Mexican supermarket chains in the country, imagines the future of food as a family-friendly mercado.On a summer weekend, mid-heat wave, the promising smell of clean fryer oil drifted through a parking lot in Costa Mesa, Calif. Inside Mercado González, children were on tiptoes, squeaking hands against the glass at El Moro, watching cooks pipe and fry swirls of dough to a precise golden brown, then snip the coils into curved batons and roll them in cinnamon sugar. It was an efficient and beautiful routine.Good churros aren’t hard to find, but El Moro is both a chain and an institution, and before the mercado opened last fall, the only place you could try its famously long, thin, thoroughly crisp-edged versions was in Mexico. The thrill is still fresh. A group of teens in front of me, dazzled by a promo video for the churro ice-cream sandwich, workshopped their orders out loud while the line shuffled along.El Moro’s first location outside Mexico serves long, thin churros at a stall inside the mercado.Michelle Groskopf for The New York TimesCommunal seating for the mercado’s diners is set next to a stage where live music often plays.Michelle Groskopf for The New York TimesNorthgate González Market is one of the largest Mexican supermarket chains in the country — family-owned, with 43 locations across Southern California and more than $1 billion in annual revenue. But when the company unveiled its splashy new project last year, it didn’t lean toward a slick imitation of Erewhon or Whole Foods Market.Instead, Northgate planned a 70,000-square-foot, open-plan, emphatically Mexican mercado with a bakery, butcher, tortilleria and a strategic lineup of food vendors with regional Mexican specialties, all bundled together under one roof.If you arrive when the mercado is particularly busy and parking seems impossible, don’t worry, you can valet.Michelle Groskopf for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
