Great restaurants don’t manufacture a sense of community. They forge it through grit, personal connection and, sometimes, a small cooler of homemade tamales.
Twenty-one years ago, Arturo Torres and his wife, Zulma Rodriguez, bet their future on just $1,700 and a handful of family recipes from Guadalajara, Mexico. An old cooler was their only equipment, its cargo of tamales drawing early crowds who bought by the dozen. That hustle built Arturo’s Mexican Restaurant, a well-entrenched landmark at 107 W. Main St. in Poplar Grove, Ill. The couple transformed the village’s historic 1930s fire station into a festive gathering space where a sprawling, scratch-made menu is served with a warm handshake.
Building that local legacy required plenty of sacrifice.
“We put so many hours in and missed family gatherings, weddings and baptisms because we had to be open,” Rodriguez says. “It all paid off, because our family is here, together. If we all had different jobs, we would not have that connection.”…