After 30 years of working at the Fisher Body plant for General Motors Co. in Lansing, Juvencio Aldaco retired. But the Lansing resident certainly didn't slow down.
He tried his hand on a radio show as a disc jockey for the former WSJ radio station that ran 14 to 16 hours a day of broadcast in Spanish.
He also performed in a band, Super Grupo Aldaco. The band played Tejano music and even played for President George W. Bush at the Kellogg Center several years ago.
And then Juvencio Aldaco went into the restaurant business. In 1995, he and his wife, Maria Aldaco, opened Aldaco's Authentic Mexican Restaurant on West Grand River Avenue in Lansing.
"He knew so many people from around Lansing from the band," his son and co-owner, Ruben Aldaco said. "That's how (the restaurant) got started."
In 2000, Aldaco's moved to Martin Luther King Boulevard for more space.
Two years later, they upgraded again to 6527 South Cedar St. in Lansing. This is where the restaurant sits today. And although Juvencio Aldaco is involved in his business, he continues to enjoy his music by writing his own songs.
"I am going to record a CD soon," Juvencio Aldaco said.
He stops by the restaurant intermittently from day to day.
"Sometimes I come and clean tables and seat people," he said.
The restaurant serves Mexican dishes as well as traditional American cuisine. An average meal costs about $7.25. The food is considered authentic because it is all made from scratch from recipes learned when his family lived in Mexico, Ruben Aldaco said.
They also make their own tortillas.
"People like the homemade flour tortillas that we press right in front of them," Ruben Aldaco said.
Ruben Aldaco's advice to students planning to cook Mexican food is to know about spices.
"It makes a big difference, from the powders that we use to the seasonings," he said. "In the ground beef meat, you can definitely taste the difference from anybody else because we use four different seasonings. The enchilada sauce is made from scratch."
The most popular item at Aldaco's is the buffet.
"Having the buffet helps me out because I don't have to have so many cooks," Ruben Aldaco said.
The buffet runs all day. Breakfast foods are served in the morning, and the buffet is changed to lunch items such as tacos and enchiladas at 11 a.m.
At dinnertime, more foods are put out including chicken, pork and wet burritos.
The busiest days at Aldaco's are Fridays and Sundays, Ruben Aldaco said. Sundays are special because more authentic foods such as tamales, molle and carne guisada de res are on the buffet, he said.
"Sunday has a lot more authentic food because the majority of people that come in are Hispanic," Ruben Aldaco said. "Many people from Cristo Rey Parish come in and Cristo Rey Parish's majority is Spanish. A lot of different restaurants in Detroit and Chicago put more authentic dishes out for the weekend as opposed to Monday through Friday because more people come out to eat on the weekend."
