A Vast Mexican Market Has Become a Whole New Scene in Orange County

On a summer weekend, mid-heat wave, the promising smell of clean fryer oil drifted through a parking lot in Costa Mesa, Calif. Inside Mercado González, children were on tiptoes, squeaking hands against the glass at El Moro, watching cooks pipe and fry swirls of dough to a precise golden brown, then snip the coils into curved batons and roll them in cinnamon sugar. It was an efficient and beautiful routine.

Good churros aren’t hard to find, but El Moro is both a chain and an institution, and before the mercado opened last fall, the only place you could try its famously long, thin, thoroughly crisp-edged versions was in Mexico. The thrill is still fresh. A group of teens in front of me, dazzled by a promo video for the churro ice-cream sandwich, workshopped their orders out loud while the line shuffled along.

Northgate González Market is one of the largest Mexican supermarket chains in the country — family-owned, with 43 locations across Southern California and more than $1 billion in annual revenue. But when the company unveiled its splashy new project last year, it didn’t lean toward a slick imitation of Erewhon or Whole Foods Market.

Instead, Northgate planned a 70,000-square-foot, open-plan, emphatically Mexican mercado with a bakery, butcher, tortilleria and a strategic lineup of food vendors with regional Mexican specialties, all bundled together under one roof.