Northgate González Market went big and upscale with its newest store concept, Mercado González, which opened this month in Costa Mesa.
The Anaheim-based Hispanic supermarket chain renovated a former Albertsons at the northeast corner of Harbor Boulevard and Wilson Street, near the edge of the former Fairview Development Center, into a roughly 70,000-square-foot marketplace featuring a collection of vendors serving Mexican cuisine and specialty Mexican products alongside traditional grocery offerings.
The marketplace and food hall is roughly double the size of a typical store for Northgate González, one of the country’s largest Hispanic grocers, which counts 44 locations in the state.
Twelve of those spots are in Orange County, where the company got its start over 40 years ago, converting a former liquor store in Anaheim into its first location.
The Mercado, Spanish for “marketplace,” is the first store of its kind for the family-owned business founded in 1980 by husband-and-wife duo Don Miguel and Doña Teresa González.
The company is currently managed by the third generation of the González family, who wanted to offer “Mexican culinary delight and cultural immersion” for consumers.
“It was a long journey for everyone here,” Director of Store Operations Moises González said at a pre-opening event the week the mercado debuted. The new store will create around 300 new jobs in the city, adding to its local headcount of 2,399 people across its headquarters and stores in OC.
The grocer ranked No. 22 in the Business Journal’s list of the county’s largest employers in November.
Northgate, currently owned by the 13 González siblings, worked with the owners of the Harbor Center shopping center to remodel the retail space over the last two years; the project was envisioned prior to that, but put on hold during the pandemic.
The Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce expects the marketplace to bring “a substantial economic contribution to the city.”
The project—the largest local addition for Northgate González since opening its 384,000-square-foot headquarters in 2010—has gotten rave reviews since opening; online food site Eater LA calls the “amazing” new spot “a wonderland of Mexican food.”
Mexican Eateries
There are more than 20 puestos, or food stands, that offer prepared, authentic Mexican dishes such as menudo, tamales and birria. Other vendors fill up the rest of the space to sell meats, salsas, cheeses, produce, and other products.
This includes housemade items from the store’s in-house Tortilleria, Pasteleria and Dulces Artesanos.
To round out its offerings, Mercado González opened a fine dining restaurant called Maizano brought to life by Los Angeles-based culinary duo Jorge Salim and Javier Hernandez Pons.
The market also includes a 6,000-square-foot outdoor bar called Entre Nos Bar with a wide selection of mezcal, tequila and Mexican beers.
The bar is a part of Northgate’s design of having both indoor and outdoor seating at the Mercado concept, to provide local consumers with a destination for shopping and dining.
Live music and entertainment will also take place to help foster a “bustling market” environment. The walls of the store are covered with painted murals by Claudio Limón, an artist from Guadalajara.
Costa Mesa is the only city to currently have the Mercado concept from Northgate.
Cultural Collaboration
The Mercado presented an opportunity for Northgate to bring in multiple Mexico-based businesses into Costa Mesa, with many making their first presence in Orange County.
For El Moro Churrería, a Mexico City-based churro bakery established in 1935, the Northgate market marks the group’s first location in the United States.
The bakery is a family-owned business, currently overseen by Santiago Iriarte and Francisco Iriarte from the founding family with 17 locations in Mexico.
After meeting the González family, El Moro wanted to partner with Northgate to not only open at the Mercado but to also grow all throughout California with their help.
“We really think that Northgate has the same kind of recognition that we have back home, and opening inside their amazing new project for us is like having a very big first push with not many risks into our first steps into the U.S.,” the duo said.
Carnitas Don Miguel also opened its first physical stand at the market. Other eateries include Chiva Torta by the Albarran familia and Tacos Los Guichos from Familia Zenteno.
