After purchasing the building nearly five years ago and slowly tackling renovation projects, Lizeth Torrecillas and her husband, Juan Martinez Sr., are set to open their new business in downtown Centralia — JJ’s Sports Bar.
The Martinez-Torrecillas family will hold a grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony for JJ’s Sports Bar Friday, Oct. 18, starting at 4 p.m. The event, hosted in part by the Centralia-Chehalis Chamber of Commerce, will feature a limited menu and free appetizers along with drink specials. As a sports bar, only those 21 and older are allowed to attend.
Celebrity impersonator Javier Enrique will perform during the grand opening on Friday.
On Saturday, the full menu will be available.
Located at 537 N. Tower Ave. at the former location of Bub’s Pub Sports Bar & Grill, Joe’s Tavern and other drinking establishments dating back decades, the business’s name comes from a combination of Juan Sr.’s name along with his son, Juan Martinez Jr. It is not affiliated with JJ’s ToGo, which opened up earlier this year just down the road at 204 N. Tower Ave.
Having called Centralia home since moving here in the 1990s, Juan Sr. originally came from Veracruz, Mexico, and Torrecillas came from Culiacán, Mexico.
“I met him over here. He was originally my sister’s husband’s friend,” Torrecillas said. “When he came and visited, he saw me over there and went, ‘Ah, I love you!’”
They’re now approaching 25 years of marriage. Juan Sr. has owned Northwest Insulation Construction in Centralia for 20 years. He also owns Bestline Concrete along with his son, Juan Jr.
Now, Torrecillas, Juan Sr. and Juan Jr. are set to make their first foray into the restaurant world with JJ’s Sports Bar.
For years, Torrecillas has wanted her own kitchen to cook her own recipes in.
So when Juan Sr. noticed the old Bub’s Pub location was up for sale in 2019, he decided to take a look. Initially, he couldn’t afford what the seller was asking, but took a chance and submitted a bid anyway.
“I crossed my fingers, and my offer was kind of crazy,” Juan Sr. said. “So when the guy said, ‘Yes, I’ll do it,’ I asked him, ‘Can you take a down payment?’ He just laughed and said, ‘What do you mean? You made me an offer but you don’t have the money?’”
Fortunately for Juan Sr., the seller still accepted his offer and worked out a payment plan with him. The next issue was renovating the building, which needed work everywhere he looked.
“When we started, it was all rotted and bad. The plumbing was bad, the electricity was bad, all the floor was joists, which every time people remodeled it they just kepting putting new layers of plywood over it,” Juan Sr. said.
Since money was already tight for the Martinez family after purchasing the building, Juan Sr. considered taking out a loan to pay for the renovation work.
“But I didn’t want to be stuck with a loan. We found this guy who wanted to give me a loan, but he wanted to charge me like $1,500 a month just for interest,” Juan Sr. added.
Instead of taking out a loan, which he would’ve probably spent the next decade paying off, Juan Sr. and the rest of his family decided to tackle one renovation project at a time over the next five years.
From removing all the old flooring and installing new concrete flooring, to removing layers of old Stucco on the walls to reveal the original historic brick walls and redoing the kitchen and bar, they have slowly checked items off their renovation list.
Now, they’re ready for the grand opening this Friday.
Torrecillas’ menu consists of many Mexican staples mixed in with a few American classics. Offerings range from ribeye steaks, salads and potato salad to ceviche — a seafood dish with fish or shrimp marinated in lime juice and mixed with diced onions, tomatoes, jalapeños, cilantro and more — and menudo, a traditional Mexican soup made from beef tripe in broth with red chile peppers, diced onions, cilantro, hominy and spices.
“We also have posole, but the menudo is my favorite,” Torrecillas said. “I also really like the ribeye and the aguachiles en rojo.”
Aguachiles en rojo is a simple shrimp dish cooked in lime juice with spicy peppers, salt, pepper and red onions. Some of Torrecillas’ other favorites on the menu include the house-made empanadas, taquitos and the queso fundido, a dish of hot, melted cheese served with chorizo, a spicy Mexican sausage, and chips.
The menu will also feature daily specials such as burgers or wings for football Sundays. And being a sports bar, JJ’s has nine flat-screen televisions mounted on its walls to give patrons the opportunity to watch multiple games at once.
Juan Sr. said another driving factor in opening the business was that he felt the downtown area lacked good, reasonably priced Mexican dining along with a bar that much of the local Hispanic community felt comfortable in.
“There’s a lot of Spanish people here and Spanish (owned) businesses,” Juan Sr. said. “But there’s not really a place where Spanish people can go and say, ‘this is a Spanish place.’”
Working in construction, he often works hand-in-hand with many legal migrant workers who come here to work.
“A lot of those people, they don’t speak English, but they still want to go out and have dinner. And I see them, the poor guys, they go to O’Blarney’s, and they have to look for someone to translate to get some food,” Juan Sr. said. “So we tried to make a Spanish place, where me and my wife can help educate them. And when Americans want to come in still, they can, and feel how it is in Mexico and have real Mexican food.”
JJ’s Sports Bar will be open Tuesday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to midnight and Friday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., though hours may be adjusted in the future.
For more information, follow the business on its Facebook page at https://tinyurl.com/2s3zj8wv.
