Dos Amigos: Two friends ... Lots of tortillas

Starting in mid-May, Capital City Dos Amigos grocery store will make 250,000 fresh corn tortillas daily and sell them for 99 cents per dozen.

Owner Gilbert Gonzalez said he'll be trucking tortillas out the door.

"The Mexican people are used to eating fresh tortillas in the morning and evening daily," he said Wednesday. "So, it's going to rake in. I think our business is going to increase 30 to 35 percent, easy."

Tortillas will be shipped to three other Dos Amigos stores in Reno. All four are independently owned.

The tortilla machine cost Gonzalez $36,000, bringing the total cost of this new service to $65,000-$75,000. The business typically spends $2,000 a month buying tortillas from manufacturers.

Dos Amigos employs 13, with the addition of the new machine that will increase to 15. The manufacturing technicians will make about $500 a week and work in shifts from 7 a.m. to noon and 3 to 9 p.m.

Gonzalez, who lives in Storey County, purchased the 5,000-square-foot store in November, after selling his GBS Construction business because of the downturn in the industry. He started his career in groceries at 15 and has now returned to it at 46. Gonzalez has lived in Northern Nevada since 1992.

"It's growing very fast," he said about the Latino community. "There's work here and it's cheaper to live in Carson City rather than Reno."

Gonzalez is married to Carmen Gonzalez, a real estate agent, and they have four children: Anthony, vice president of Capital City Dos Amigos and a U.S. Marine just back from Iraq; Corinna, a 24-year-old science student at the University of Nevada, Reno; Gabriel, a sophomore at Truckee Meadows Community College and Abel, a senior at Reno High.

The restaurant, meat market and grocery is at 1621 Highway 50 East, suite G.

• Contact reporter Becky Bosshart at bbosshart@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1212.