Kent business is thriving<\/b><\/p>\n
You probably won\u2019t find a ripe \u201cchayote con espina\u201d or a juicy \u201cxoconostle\u201d at your local supermarket, but the spiky, potato-like vegetable and the colorful cactus fruit are popular items at La Huerta International Market in Kent.<\/p>\n
Located at 403 E. Smith St., the 3-year-old market offers a wide variety of south-of-the-border produce, meats, baked goods, dry goods and an authentic Mexican restaurant to Kent\u2019s diverse community.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a little bit of everything,\u201d said Rossy Murguia, who owns the store with her husband, Juan.<\/p>\n
Murguia, originally from a town near Mazatlan, Mexico, came to the U.S. 10 years ago and soon settled in Kent. After meeting her husband, she said the couple had dreams of being self-employed. But they didn\u2019t know what type of business they wanted to start at first.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe decided not to work for anybody else,\u201d Murguia said. \u201cWe wanted to just work for us and make money for ourselves and our children.\u201d<\/p>\n
They originally had plans to start a produce stand, but when the market\u2019s current location became available, those plans grew into something more substantial. They renovated what was an old clinic and opened a grocery store and meat market, stocking it with a wide variety of goods from their home country.<\/p>\n
Murguia said it took some time to attract customers, but soon business took off.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really slow at first,\u201d she said. \u201cWe could even take weekends off. But now we work every day. It\u2019s full all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
A year after the market\u2019s November 2005 opening, La Huerta added a Mexican restaurant, which Murguia said is more Mexican than most.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty authentic,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s like how your mom would make it for you in your house in Mexico.\u201d<\/p>\n
Only a few months ago, the market also added a bakery, offering unique Mexican breads.<\/p>\n
A lot has happened with the store lately, Murguia said, but it hasn\u2019t all been in Kent. The Murguias recently opened a store modeled after the Kent market in Tacoma, in a bigger, nicer facility.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year, somebody offered us a store in Tacoma, and we decided to take it,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was a good opportunity, so we decided to take the risk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once that store is running smoothly, she said the next goal is to expand the Kent market into the building next door and start a tortilla factory there. She also wants to make the international market better fit its name.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe plan is to actually be international, to have a lot of food from other different countries, and that\u2019s why we\u2019re expanding,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have a lot of Indian people, Chinese people and American people coming in all the time, not just Mexican people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, she said the store\u2019s success is partially due to the large Hispanic population in Kent, and she likes doing business here.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like it here a lot,\u201d Murguia said. \u201cThere are a lot of Hispanic people in this area, and they can come here and get everything they need.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more information about La Huerta International Market, call 253-520-0198.<\/p>\n
Contact Daniel Mooney at 253-437-6012 or dmooney@reporternewspapers.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You probably won\u2019t find a ripe \u201cchayote con espina\u201d or a juicy \u201cxoconostle\u201d at your local supermarket, but the spiky, potato-like vegetable and the colorful cactus fruit are popular items at La Huerta International Market in Kent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19958"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19958\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19958"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=19958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}