Family Owned Alejandro Serious Mexican Restaurant Announces Closure After 2 Years

A locally owned Mexican restaurant has closed suddenly.Photo byMarco BianchettionUnsplash

The city of Marana has proven to be one of the fastest-growing regions in the state. It certainly is one of the fastest growing in southern Arizona. In two decades it has quadrupled in size, and if you were born and raised in the city you probably hardly recognized it today. As the city grows it continues to bring in new restaurants. Some of these have roots in Tucson, while others are unique all their own. One in particular had done good things over the last two years, yet it announced it would be closing its doors.

On Wednesday, July 24, Alejandro Serious Mexican announced on its Instagram page that it officially closed its front doors. Located at 7850 Noth Silverbell Road (Suite 156), the address is technically in Tucson, as it is nearly equidistant between Tucson and Marana, though it generally serves customers from Marana or traveling between the two cities.

In the Instagram post, Alejandro Diaz, the owner of the restaurant, indicated that after some in-depth calculations, he discovered it simply would not prove financially possible to continue operating the restaurant. He said with the rising cost of quality ingredients, as well as the continued increase in other expenses such as taxes and rent, the restaurant would not be able to survive. Even if it remained elbow to elbow, every day of the week, an eatery of its size would not be able to maintain its quality and continue to stay afloat.

The issues raised in Alejandro’s departure and restaurant closing letter are not unique to Alejandro Serious Mexican. These are problems facing restaurants throughout Tucson and the state. Ingredients are increasing, and rent is skyrocketing. In order to make any kind of profit restaurant owners are forced to either cut down on labor (which affects a visitor’s experience), or increase the price of menu items to the point of it being difficult to afford.

It is a difficult time for restaurants everywhere and hard-working, locally-owned restaurants such as Alejandro’s often make up the largest grouping of closures, as other chain restaurants at the very least are able to order food in bulk to keep prices somewhat low (though even fast food restaurants like McDonald’s have menus that are growing more and more expensive).

Unfortunately, patrons of Alejandro Serious Mexican will not have an opportunity to stop by one last time as the doors have been closed for good.