Duane Roberts made an initial fortune by laying claim to the first frozen burrito. Now he’s trying his hand at another Mexican food venture.
This week, Roberts opened Las Campanas Restaurant & Cantina, the first of a possible chain, in Rancho Cucamonga.
The Inland Empire native said he’s in talks for a Las Campanas in Orange County, his adopted home.
“If we do the volume levels we want to do, we will expand,” Roberts said.
Las Campanas serves gourmet Mexican fare. Think filet mignon stuffed tacos.
“We’re the only restaurant I’ve ever heard of that will make tacos and enchiladas using choice filet mignon,” Roberts said.
Las Campanas also is big on ambiance.
“A lot of it is the experience,” Roberts said. “It’s like something you’d see in South Beach, Florida.”
The restaurant is based on Las Campanas, one of four restaurants at Riverside’s Mission Inn Hotel & Spa, which Roberts bought in the 1980s.
Las Campanas means “the bells.” The Mission Inn has one of the largest bell collections in North America, thanks to the inn’s founder, Frank Miller, who collected them.
Roberts’ vision for the restaurant: do for Mexican food what P.F. Chang’s China Bistro did for Chinese food, and them some, he said.
Some of the design details: dense, lush landscaping with a wrought-iron gate leading to a patio with a heated floor, a 16-foot, backlit water wall and a five-foot encased bell, designed by Anaheim water artist Nayer Kazemi.
“It’s a showstopper,” Roberts said.
For more on this story, see the July 9 edition of the Business Journal.
