Sunday, February 22, 2004

	Saul Franco Jimenez listens to a customer's request as his son Giovanni, 3, entertains himself at Tienda La Jimenez. Click photo for larger image.

Saul and Samantha Franco Jimenez have transplanted the little store that sits on a thousand Mexican streets to 1619 Broadway Ave.

At Tienda La Jimenez, there's Boing and Jarritos pop in the cooler, images of Our Lady of Guadalupe on display, Mexican candy and spices by the door, elaborate cut-paper banners used for parties hanging from the ceiling, and a photo of Saul's hometown in the mountains of Guerrero over the counter.

The couple opened the store just over a year ago in Beechview, which has a small but growing Mexican population.

Saul, 31, is from the town of Olinala; Samantha, 25, is from Lawrenceville. She sounds like a Pittsburgher, until she switches to Spanish and sounds as if she could have been born the next town over from her husband.

She learned her Spanish at Taco Bell.

"I was going to Oliver High School, and I was getting into trouble. I was supposed to go to Letsche," a school in the Hill District. Instead, her parents decided to send her to stay with relatives in a town near Portland, Ore., hoping she would straighten herself out.

	About this project "Here" is a weekly feature produced by Post-Gazette photographers and writers who roam the region to capture close-up slices of life. Can you point us to a special person or place, experience or story? E-mail us at here@post-gazette.com. Link to past installments HERE.

She attended Gladstone High School and worked at a Taco Bell in a nearby area that is heavily Hispanic.

She picked up Spanish easily and liked using it.

"I took Spanish in high school here. I failed -- isn't that funny? I never thought it was something I could use."

Her parents' plan worked. She finished high school and came back to Pittsburgh and to the good graces of her family in 1996, a year after Saul arrived here from Mexico.

The two met dancing at Cozumel in Shadyside that fall, got married early the next year, and now have four boys: Saul, 5, Giovanni, 3, Angelo, 2, and Samuel, 9 months.

The tienda has become a gathering spot for Mexicans in the neighborhood, a place for food and conversation, with a foosball table in the back for the kids.

Saul says he wanted a place where people could feel at home and find the things they love from home. Here it is, in Beechview.

Lillian Thomas can be reached at lthomas@post-gazette.com or 412-263-3566. Martha Rial can be reached at .

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