Dinner Theater Looks to Play Off Disney, Locals
On Saturday nights, Bolivian immigrant Mike Helguero recreates a bit of Mexico City revelry for tourists and other visitors in the shadow of Disneyland.
“Maybe I’m the only Bolivian guy who owns a professional mariachi band,” Helguero says.
Helguero’s Plaza Garibaldi restaurant is host to the largest mariachi dinner show in California, he says. The Anaheim restaurant is just blocks from the Disneyland Resort, though at times it seems miles away from the Magic Kingdom.
The 12,000-square-foot venue off Brookhurst Street is named for Plaza Garibaldi in Mexico City, where bands of mariachis dressed in wide-brimmed charro hats and silver-adorned jackets play for tourists and locals.
Helguero, who got his start detailing cars, is seeking to carve out a place in Orange County’s cluttered resort area by offering authentic Mexican food along with a healthy serving of the country’s cultural arts.
“Nicely dressed, well-educated people want to see the culture of Mexico,” he said. “I would like to see Plaza Garibaldi in Hawaii, San Diego and New York with the same idea of showing Mexican culture all over the United States.”
Helguero says he doesn’t have any formal expansion plans yet. For now, he’s looking to build up Plaza Garibaldi in its new location,the restaurant recently relocated from another site that was even closer to Disneyland on Anaheim Boulevard. But Disneyland-related work on the Santa Ana (I-5) Freeway slowed business by half, he said. Parking also was a problem.
At Plaza Garibaldi’s new location, Helguero gained a larger kitchen and a 325-seat dinner theater as well as a 215-seat restaurant. The restaurant took the place of a former nightclub that wasn’t too popular with neighbors because of fights and other troubles, Helguero says.
What hasn’t changed for Plaza Garibaldi in its new location is the competition, which ranges from Medieval Times in Buena Park to Y Arriba Y Arriba, a new Latin American dinner theater at Downtown Disney.
The challenge, Helguero says, is getting in with hotels where tourists craving Mexican food often are sent to a nearby El Torito or to Buena Park’s Medieval Times and Wild Bill’s Wild West Extravaganza for dinner theater. Most large dinner theater restaurants have pacts with hotels around Disneyland for guest referrals, he says.
While getting the word out at hotels hasn’t been easy, the Sheraton Anaheim Hotel says it refers guests to Plaza Garibaldi, according to Janine Betancourt, who works in the hotel’s catering department. The $30 round-trip cab fare to see what Betancourt called “one of the best mariachi bands around” is worth it, she said.
The sole owner of Plaza Garibaldi, Helguero said he spends about $72,000 a year promoting Plaza Garibaldi on local TV stations, Spanish radio and in Latino newspapers. Without a big budget, Helguero said he also depends on word of mouth and fliers that he distributes.
“About 75% or more about doing business is advertising,” he said.
Helguero said he even recently bought a shuttle bus that he’s preparing to send out to hotels to offer free rides to and from his restaurant.
Plaza Garibaldi is unique among OC tourist spots, fitting somewhere between the flash of Downtown Disney and the camp of Buena Park’s attractions. During the week, Plaza Garibaldi is a Mexican restaurant with food that Helguero claims is so authentic you’ll feel as if you’ve stepped into Mexico.
Come the weekend, the restaurant livens up with a floor show that’s part Mexican folk art, part vaudeville. The entertainment starts with Ninos de Garibaldi, a ballet folklorico of teenagers dressed in traditional garb. Then comes the Mariachi Garibaldi, the restaurant’s house band of trumpeters, violinists and guitar players. There’s also a cowboy roper and the Ernesto the crazy waiter, who’s actually a waiter who livens up the show with comedic hijinks.
Plaza Garibaldi is rich in ambiance, too. Black and white photos of famous Mexican figures line the walls. Helguero said his favorite picture is the one of Marilyn Monroe in Mexico standing with a mariachi group.
Plaza Garibaldi also has a separate, quieter dining room where locals and tired tourists can sample salsa made from scratch.
“The salsa,that’s the real stuff, not canned. Real authentic flavor,” said Ray Banuelos, who works for Anaheim-based Crescent Healthcare Inc. “To go somewhere to get dinner and the mariachi,this place is really reasonable.”
To hear Helguero put it, the tourists and others who do make their way to Plaza Garibaldi eat it up. Hispanics, though, aren’t a big part of the clientele, he said. Non-Hispanics account for about 90% of business during the day and 75% at night, he estimates.
“Most people think mariachi is five fat musicians making music right in front of you,” Helguero said. “But, the first thing people from New York want to see is what Mexican food is like, so they come here.”
Low Hispanic attraction to the restaurant is something Helguero said he is trying to change. After all, at about 154,000 people, Anaheim’s Hispanic population is second in OC only to nearby Santa Ana’s.
Drawing Hispanics isn’t easy, according to Helguero. Working class Hispanics feel that they can’t afford the food in a place where it isn’t acceptable to wear sandals and T-shirts, he said.
The Hispanics that do visit Plaza Garibaldi tend to come for special occasions like birthdays, Helguero said. They’ll spend as much as $3,000 on a large table, he said. Non-Hispanics tend to visit more often for the food and the atmosphere, he added.
Plaza Garibaldi faces regional competition for Hispanic business. Guadalajara Grill in Hispanic-heavy Baldwin Park also features a mariachi show. A variety of other Southland restaurants, from Cielito Lindo in South El Monte to Tlaquepaque Restaurant in Placentia, also offer mariachi music.
Plaza Garibaldi employs 35 people and 23 contract entertainers. Combined yearly sales from Plaza Garibaldi and another restaurant Helguero owns in Santa Ana,Taqueria America,are around $1 million, he said.
Helguero, a onetime dental student in Bolivia, came to the U.S. in 1980 and started a car detailing business.
But he said he found regulations and permits were too costly to continue the operation.
After visiting a Chinese restaurant in Santa Ana in 1994, Helguero said he noticed that local eateries weren’t attracting customers in the predominantly Hispanic area. His first thought was to open a Bolivian restaurant, like the one his mother operates in his home country. But he said he soon realized what the area needed: a Mexican restaurant.
With the help of his wife, Helguero opened Taqueria America seven years ago on McFadden Avenue near Grand Avenue.
Steady business at Taqueria America afforded Helguero the chance to start another venture,assembling a mariachi group for a thematic dinner show.
“I had to travel all over California to find a mariachi group,” Helguero said.
Helguero decided to call his restaurant Plaza Garibaldi in a conscious effort to bring the famous Mexico square to OC and hopefully draw large crowds of curious tourists and Mexican immigrants.
“The name I chose for the restaurant is a big responsibility to us to do something that represents Mexico,” Helguero said. “I choose a very powerful name for Latinos. What Plaza Garibaldi means to Mexicans could be worth millions of dollars.” n
