T-R PHOTO BY NICK BAUR Restaurateur Naomy Garcia in her family’s newly renovated Mexican restaurant Plaza del Sol located on 903 W Lincoln Way. The business, previously named Plaza Mexico, closed down last December before returning to Marshalltown this past week.

One Marshalltown restaurant has reopened its door to customers this past week as Plaza Mexico, now named Plaza del Sol, is back in business serving Mexican cuisine in the area.

Located at 903 W. Lincoln Way, the family-run restaurant closed down in December of last year, but as restaurant co-manager Naomy Garcia said, the family was excited to be back in business in the Marshalltown community.

“It feels good. We’ve been open for about a week, and it’s been great,” Garcia said about their return. “I’ve met a lot of people that have been coming here since the very beginning about six years ago.”

The Garcia family opened the establishment in 2016, and they are hoping customers new and old will stop by to try familiar favorites served each day.

“[We’re] just reintroducing our food to our customers, and the certain plates that they really enjoyed,’ Garcia said. “We’ve received a very good outpour from the community coming in and trying the food again, and seeing if it’s still the original food that we had previously, and it is.”

“My dad’s back in the kitchen, which is good. My mom’s serving,” she continued. “It’s still the same people in the kitchen. We have new staff out here but we still have our same servers that we had before.”

Yet, while the eatery will feature a similar menu, and some recognizable faces from past years, Garcia says they are hoping to bring patrons new favorites they may have seen elsewhere.

“We’re kind of having a little bit more of a turn, because there were certain things that our customers were wanting,” she said. “We were able to bring those items they felt that they could maybe get somewhere else. We brought those here in house.”

Alongside such classic fare as carne asada, enchiladas, street tacos, homemade tamales, and fajitas, the menu will be adding more options for larger groups of customers.

“We do have some new plates,” Garcia said. “We have more plates that focus on multiple people — portion plates for one certain price. So people can split the cost versus an individual person getting a plate… We returned all of our old menu as well that people enjoyed.”

The reopening of the restaurant is the continuation of the long tradition of foodservice for the family, something Garcia says enhances their establishment.

“We’re a family-run business, and we live in Marshalltown,” she said. “That’s the biggest thing. A lot of people that own businesses typically don’t step foot where the community is, so we know our community.”

Plaza del Sol is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. from Monday to Thursday each week, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday through Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Sunday.

The restaurant can be contacted by phone at (641) 352-3027 or seen on Facebook at www.facebook.com/PlazaMexicoMarshalltown.

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Contact Nick Baur

at 641-753-6611 or

nbaur@timesrepublican.com.