HispanicBusiness

They came to Los Angeles from Mexico when they were teenagers. His family had 10 children. Hers had 11. Both were from the working class, and neither spoke English.

Now, Narciso and Carla Rojas, co-owners of several local businesses, including the Taco Roco restaurant chain in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties (Calif.), are living the American dream.

"We worked very hard and sacrificed a lot," said Carla, 36, in Spanish. "Owning a restaurant was always something I wanted. I thought it was the best way to improve our lives." Indeed, hard work and determination have paid off for the couple, whose local businesses bring in annual revenues of about $4.5 million. They have a stake in five Taco Roco restaurants, which alone bring in $3 million in annual revenues, and three other shops in San Luis Obispo's Laguna Village Shopping Center. A new Taco Roco is set to open in November on Broad Street.

The Rojases say everything they make now goes back into their businesses, and they're applying for a bank loan to open the latest restaurant. Narciso Rojas said the Taco Roco business has grown 25 percent to 30 percent over the past three years.

According to the latest economic figures on minority-owned businesses by the U.S. Census Bureau in 1997, San Luis Obispo County had 1,419 firms owned by Hispanics. Sales and receipts from those businesses totaled $213 million at Uthe time.

David Ryal, director of the Small Business Development Center at Cuesta College, said 15 percent of his clients are Hispanic, mirroring the Hispanic growth in the county. The U.S. Census Bureau reported in 2000 that San Luis Obispo County is 16.3 percent Hispanic.

"We are getting a number of clients simply looking to own a business as a way to advance themselves as opposed to entry-level or minimum-wage jobs," said Ryal.

For the Rojases, success did not come quickly or easily.

Narciso came to Los Angeles at 15 from his family home in Zacatecas, where his father worked as a substitute teacher. Carla came to Los Angeles when she was 17 from her home in Jalisco, where her father worked as a farmer.

After moving to Lompoc, Narciso worked for 15 years at Arbor Tree Surgery, a tree-trimming company based in Paso Robles, where he became a supervisor. For more than 10 years, Carla worked as a cashier and manager at the Lompoc-based Taco Loco, founded in 1991 by Jose Luis Carmona and Jesus Valencia.

"I took night classes in English, but I only speak well enough to communicate with customers," said Carla, who now spends most of her day running her new clothing store, Carla's Fashion, which she co-owns with her sister Celia.

The couple's big break came when Valencia retired and Carmona offered his former business partner's share to Narciso and Carla. They put in their savings and money borrowed from relatives -- totaling about $50,000 -- to buy into the business.

Narciso and Carla divided ownership of the restaurant and changed its name to Taco Roco.

The first Taco Roco restaurant opened in 1999 in the Laguna Village Shopping Center. The new name, Taco Roco, does not have any meaning in Spanish, but it sounded similar to the original and was meant to "inspire curiosity," Narciso said.

"It was always work, work, work to make a living," said Narciso, 38, who had stints as a dishwasher, landscaper and fabric worker before joining Arbor Tree Surgery.