Fresno business serves free food with each round of drinks. ‘Just like the ones in Mexico’

Nestled along train tracks in central Fresno is a single-story restaurant painted with colors that evoke the Mexican flag. A mural of the late Mexican singer Vicente Fernandez adorns the eastern exterior wall.

On a warm Friday evening in June, a trio holding birthday balloons and gift bags walks through the front door and grabs a large table towards the back.

Nearby, two men start on their fourth bucket of beer while they wait for a band to start.

In a corner booth across the room, a group of coworkers, primarily from Nicaragua, celebrates a wedding anniversary.

A 14-member Sinaloan-style band stands under a glittery disco ball and warms up for their set – an hour later than scheduled.

They’re all here to experience El Godinazo, a one-of-a-kind restaurant that recreates a slice of Mexican coastal culture in the heart of California.

The business has a simple but uncommon model, at least in the U.S.: Pay for your drinks and the food is free.

The business owner, Raúl Godinez, opened El Godinazo a little over a year ago, inspired by the popular centro botaneros from his home state of Nayarit. A centro botanero is a type of outdoor, open-air restaurant known for giving out free botanas, or appetizers, with every round of drinks consumed.

Since opening in May 2022, El Godinazo has become more than a unique Nayarit-style restaurant. It’s also a community gathering place – an unlikely taste of home for families, friends and immigrants from throughout Latin America.

People come from across the Central Valley – as far as Bakersfield, Turlock and Hanford – to experience El Godinazo. Some heard about it on Spanish radio stations and others through word of mouth.

“They want to know if it’s real,” Godinez said, “because they can’t believe it.”

A childhood dream born in Nayarit

Godinez, 54, has dreamed of opening El Godinazo ever since he was a kid.

Born in the town of Pescadero, Nayarit, he remembers first visiting a centro botanero as a youth in his home state. The only problem was that he didn’t have enough money to enjoy the full experience.

“I was still hungry because I didn’t have enough money to buy more drinks,” he said. So he told himself that when he grew up, he was going to open his own – “just like the ones in Mexico.”

For the past few decades, Godinez has been saving up to make his dream a reality.

By day, Godinez runs an 18-year-old car parts business in Fresno. He said he often works from eight in the morning until midnight between his day job and El Godinazo.

“I had to teach myself to do everything,” Godinez said about running the restaurant, as he grabbed a gallon-size jug of Clamato from behind the bar to make a michelada.

He studied the concept by watching YouTube videos from Nayarit since he can’t travel to and from Mexico due to his legal status – “at least not without a coyote,” he said with a laugh.

“There’s a saying,” Godinez said, that “to go to Nayarit and not visit a centro botanero is like not going to Nayarit.”

Godinez quickly realized he couldn’t operate the business alone.

He recruited his sister to help in the kitchen – especially with customer favorites like caldo de camarón – a broth-based shrimp soup and the “Godinazo,” a plate of shrimp covered in a special adobo sauce made of guajillo chiles, chile de arból, butter, pepper and garlic. She’s the only one who knows the exact recipe.

Most of the dishes are spicy, said Godinez. “People tell me, ‘hey, this has a lot of chile!’” to which he responds, “Well, I’m sorry but that’s how it is.”

But his primary business partner is his daughter, Yosemite, who handles legal, accounting and administrative responsibilities.

“She’s my right hand,” Godinez said of 21-year-old Yosemite, who recently graduated from Fresno State with a degree in social work. She even chose the business name, an idea she came up with as a child.

“I always wanted to have a restaurant-bar type-thing,” she said, “and my dad has always been very supportive with all of our ideas.”

Other restaurant owners told Godinez that a business that gives away free food would never survive. But that didn’t stop him – and he said business is actually going well. (In addition to the free appetizers, the restaurant also offers an à la carte menu for the heartier shrimp and fried fish options.)

“It is profitable,” he said, “I’m even wanting to start a franchise.”

Immigrants find community, familiarity at Fresno restaurant

For immigrants from Nayarit and other coastal Mexican states, El Godinazo is a familiar environment that feels like home.

On a recent Friday night, Juan Lopez and Jonathan Hernandez, coworkers at the Sanger-based poultry company Pitman Family Farms, gathered at a table to feast on ceviche, shrimp platters and aguachile with a few cubetas, or buckets, of beer.

Lopez, originally from the town of Tequila, Jalisco, was visiting El Godinazo for the third time. He said the restaurant reminded him of similar places back home.

“In Mexico, there are places where you show up, buy a bucket of beer and they bring you fried fish and ceviche tostadas and stuff,” he said. “It’s like here.”

People from other Latin American countries agree.

For Jesus Molinares – who visited with fellow coworkers from a local solar company – El Godinazo reminds him of similar establishments in his hometown of Matagalpa, Nicaragua, that serve drinks accompanied by free Nicaraguan dishes with meat, rice, beans and salads.

“That’s why I like it here,” he said while the band played “Las Mañanitas,” a birthday song, in the background. “It’s a very nice place, very relaxed,” he said, “Muy bueno.”

The house band, Banda Sinaloense Pura Cajeta, which plays every Friday and Sunday night, sometimes plays songs such as “El Corrido de Nayarit” – a nostalgic ballad that pays tribute to Godinez’s home state.

That’s because some of the group’s members are also from Nayarit.

According to an analysis of Mexican census data conducted by the Migration Policy Institute, between 2015 and 2020, 14,000 people migrated abroad from Nayarit, with 93% going to the U.S. California – particularly Southern California – is their top destination.

Band leader Jonathan Castaño, a 28-year-old dental lab technician by day and Fresno City College graduate, said he was already familiar with the restaurant’s concept since he, too, hails from the Mexican coastal state. He also already knew the Godinez family because he studied at McLane High School with Godinez’s son.

“That’s why I said ‘ayyy, I like this restaurant for our band,’” he said.

Mexican restaurant offers beer, community

Godinez views his centro botanero as more than a restaurant. It’s also a place to socialize in a familial environment.

“If you eat in a restaurant, you get full and you’re ready to leave,” Godinez said. “But not here. You’re socializing, chatting, snacking. And there’s people who stay two, three, even four hours.”

In her book “A Place at the Nayarit,” Natalia Molina, a professor of American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California, documents the way her Nayarit-born grandmother’s Los Angeles restaurant, El Nayarit, became a community space and support network for Nayarit-born immigrants in Los Angeles.

She describes places like El Godinazo as “urban anchors,” or spaces that marginalized, ethnic groups such as immigrants create that help communities find connection.

For Godinez, that’s what it’s about.

People of all ages and backgrounds are welcome at El Godinazo, he said.

“Old people, young people, women, men, kids,” he said. “We’re 100% family-friendly.”

Godinez said the space is a refuge for some, such as single moms who might not have anyone to leave their children with.

The moms can dance, while “the kids lay down on the chairs at the table.”

As the sun begins to set on the warm summer evening, El Godinazo is coming to life. A server delivers eight bowls of spicy shrimp soup to a large party. With the band in full swing, couples make their way towards the dance floor and begin bouncing rhythmically to the fast-paced banda beats. People squeeze around tables now covered with drinks and mariscos – with no end to the feasting in sight.