New restaurant aiming for friendly atmosphere

By Bryan Gentry

Published: August 6, 2008

After years in the dark and in silence, the former Pappy’s restaurant building in the Ambriar Shopping Center is alive again.

The sounds are of hot fajitas, still sizzling from the grill, making their way through the dining room. It’s like they’re singing along with the mariachi music being played over a speaker system. Meanwhile, a Spanish-language television show is airing on a TV mounted on the wall.

A midafternoon lunch crowd fills half the restaurant, eating and talking under paintings of dancing jalapeno peppers.

Gerardo Sanchez opened the Mexican restaurant El Mariachi on July 25 –– a family goal.

“We are happy to be here,” Sanchez said.

Attracting restaurants to open in Amherst County also has been a goal for the board of supervisors, said Joe Mullen, the county’s economic development director.

Sanchez’s sister owns two Mexican restaurants in the region, El Cazador in Altavista and Bedford. Sanchez formerly managed the Altavista location.

He knew that the people in Amherst are “friendly people” without many places to eat out, Sanchez said. He wanted to open a restaurant to give them a new place to eat out and to experience authentic Mexican food.

His nephew Luis Pumagualle called Paul Wailes, the owner of the Ambriar Shopping Center, several times over the past few years to ask about the building that used to be Pappy’s.

Wailes wasn’t interested then in getting a new restaurant, Pumagualle said.

“We were trying to open for a long time,” Sanchez said.

Earlier this year, though, Pumagualle saw that the building and some parts of the shopping center were being renovated. He approached Wailes again and got a positive response, he said.

The first week in business has kept Sanchez and his crew of about 13 busy.

The menu has a variety of Mexican cuisine with about 20 lunch items under $5.50 and many dinner items under $7. It also has some vegetarian items.

Sanchez said the food is prepared with fresh ingredients by a chef from Mexico. “He’s been cooking for a long time,” Sanchez said. “He has experience making Mexican food.”

The food is prepared with “an authentic but mild flavor,” according to the menu.

“We fix it so that it’s not as hot,” Sanchez said. That makes the food “more accessible … We fix it so everybody can taste it.”

Some things on the menu are very spicy, though. Sanchez said the hottest item on the menu is Camarones a la Diabla – “shrimp from the devil.”

El Mariachi’s opening comes amid other revitalization efforts at the Ambriar Shopping Center. Begun in the early 1970s, the shopping center grew up over time without a uniform, coordinated look, Mullen said.

Wailes has “been dressing it up” with brick columns and roof structures to make the center more uniform, Mullen said.

“We’re really pleased with the work he’s doing there,” Mullen said.