We’ve all heard of more than our share of businesses that are struggling to survive, or are flat-out busted and going out of business.
So it ought to be a pleasant story to learn of a business that this year opened its 100th location (spread across seven Southwestern U.S. states) and has plans to open 85 more locations in the next few years.
THE BUSINESS I refer to is Pizza Patron – a 25-year-old company founded in Dallas that gives us mass-produced pizzas delivered quickly. But their niche is that they cater to the growing Latino market, and are big on locating in neighborhoods where Spanish is spoken heavily – and primarily.
The company got its national attention four years ago when they said they would start accepting payment for pizzas in Mexican pesos – figuring that some people might have small amounts of both Mexico and U.S. currency on hand.
Going through the hassle of converting the Mexican cash to its U.S. value was worth it if it meant building up business amongst Latinos – who as they shift more and more to Yankee greenbacks will want to spend them more and more with the businesses that were sympathetic towards them all along.
The company issued a statement Monday talking of its latest expansion 20 new locations in the area in and around Fresno, Calif. The company just seems determined to grow, which makes it so unlike many other businesses in existence these days.
IT OUGHT TO be regarded as a U.S. economic success story. Although I’m sure there are more than their share of individuals who will want to denigrate it for being willing to cater to the portion of the population that they don’t want to regard as a legitimate part of our society.
Well, that’s just tough!
If anything, economics and business ought to be the most un-ideological and non-partisan of elements of our society. Let them reach out to those who are willing to work hard and take advantage of opportunities – even one such as mass-producing pizzas for those moments when Latinos who don’t live within the delivery radius of a Domino’s or Little Caesar franchise feel the need for some pepperoni and mushroom.
Personally, I have never had a Pizza Patron pizza. They haven’t ventured in Chicago. I’d like to think it is because the metropolitan area already is saturated with enough pizzerias of quality that we realize just how unappetizing a Domino’s pizza truly is.
MAYBE WE DON’T need another chain. Or maybe the day will come when they see the roughly 2 million Latinos (out of 12 million people overall) who live in Illinois, and will decide that there is some place for their product amongst us too.
Which may be the ultimate victory that my ethnic brethren achieves over the conservative ideologues who would want to demonize us.
Our economic power ultimately will crush their rancid rhetoric. And as for the fact that these ideologues seem like they’d put their nonsense ahead of business?
To me, that sounds downright un-American.
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