Roger and Mirna Aceituno, owners of Aceituno's Mexican Food, with their son Hector, 19, and daughter Mirna, 13, and dog, Oreo, outside the family's newest venture on Harrison Avenue in Centralia. The couple opened their first restaurant in 2013 and the Centralia location will be their ninth location.
Daryl Noice, former owner of Infantino's Espresso, helps with work being done to building that once housed his espresso stand but will soon house Aceituno's Mexican Food's ninth restaurant. Noice said when the Aceituno family approached him about their concept, he thought it was a really good idea.
Roger and Mirna Aceituno, owners of Aceituno's Mexican Food, with their son Hector, 19, and daughter Mirna, 13, and dog, Oreo, outside the family's newest venture on Harrison Avenue in Centralia. The couple opened their first restaurant in 2013 and the Centralia location will be their ninth location.
Sabino “Roger” Aceituno and his wife, Mirna, met while working at a restaurant together. She was a cashier and he was a cook. Today, they have been married 23 years and are in the process of opening their ninth restaurant.
Roger says there’s nowhere they’d rather be.
“We’ve worked in restaurants all our lives,” Roger said. “We just loved what we did and thought it was time to make our own history.”
When it opens in a few weeks, Aceituno’s Mexican Food on Harrison Avenue in Centralia will be the couple’s ninth restaurant of the same name. They opened the first Aceituno’s Mexican Food in Port Orchard in 2013. Today, they own restaurants in Port Orchard, Orting, Kent, Spanaway, Covington, Kirkland and two locations in Bremerton. The Centralia location, on Harrison Avenue in the former site of Infantino’s Espresso, is planned to open before March 1.
Aceituno’s is a family restaurant first and foremost. Roger said members of their family are involved in all of their locations. Their four kids Edgar, 25, Ryan, 23, Hector, 19, and Mirna, 13, are also part of the Aceituno legacy. Besides family involvement, Roger said the hallmark of all of their locations is food that is cooked fresh on site.
“Our philosophy is fine dining in a fast-food concept and that’s been our signature for all our restaurants,” Roger said. “We are really blessed. It’s wonderful how the community has embraced our projects.”
While the last year has been especially difficult for the restaurant industry, it was actually the COVID-19 pandemic that inspired the family to open a location in Centralia. Roger explained that the Centralia Factory Outlets was one of their favorite choices for a day trip when they felt the need to get out of their home in Covington and see something different. On one trip to the Twin Cities, they were looking for a place to eat and noted a lack of a casual Mexican takeout restaurants like theirs.
“People from around here were asking us to open something in Centralia or Olympia because they were driving all the way to Spanaway to get our food,” Roger said.
Both Roger and Mirna are from northern Mexico, so their food style tends to be similar to taco shops in California, including their signature street style tacos. Beside the regular menu items such as tacos, burritos, rice and beans, the Acietuno’s menu also features more unique items such as mulitas, smaller versions of filled quesadillas which are sometimes referred to as Mexican grilled cheese, bowl meals featuring the normal burrito fillings without the tortilla and carne asada fries, which are similar to nachos but using fries instead of tortilla chips. All locations offer a widely popular Taco Tuesday featuring $1.25 street tacos as well as a taco box featuring 20 tacos with rice, beans, chips and salsa for $44.95. No matter the menu item, Roger said the emphasis is always fresh and high-end ingredients. Last year, Aceituno’s began using only all white meat chicken, and on Feb. 1, all restaurants will use only Angus beef.
“I’m always thinking ‘how can I make it better?’ Not because I said it, but because the quality of the food speaks for itself,” Roger said.
The new Centralia Aceituno’s features a drive-thru window as well as a front walk-up window for ordering. The existing building had enough area for a small kitchen, and the family is expanding it by about 300-square-feet to add more storage space for ingredients. They have also added a second driveway into the property off East High Street, behind Burgerville, to allow for customers to drive through from both directions. The building does not have room for on-site dining, but Roger said they are considering options for a large currently open-air front patio area, which could be enclosed or at least covered to create an area where customers could enjoy their meal.
Former Infantino’s owner Daryl Noice was at the construction site on a recent afternoon helping get the building ready for its new occupants. He said he had recently closed his other Infantino’s location when the Aceitunos approached him about the possibility of buying the Harrison Avenue property. When he heard about their plans for the location, he said he thought it was a good idea.
“We’re pretty excited about it,” Noice said of Aceituno’s. “I think it will be a good thing for the community.”
