Mexican restaurant, with a market next door, coming to Johnson County strip center

A Johnson County strip center will be home to both a Mexican supermarket and restaurant.

Alsuper Mexican Market, a 9,500-square-foot store at 10400 Shawnee Mission Parkway in the Shawnee Shopping Center, will offer a variety of Mexican products, as well as fresh meat and produce. It will also feature a Chipotle-style to-go kitchen in the back.

Plus, owner Luis Ramos is opening a Mexican restaurant, El Lenador, at 10336 Shawnee Mission Parkway next door, said project manager Katrina Caddell.

When Ramos was growing up, his parents owned a grocery store in Chihuahua, Mexico, Caddell said. After Ramos immigrated more than two decades ago, he began to dream of following in their footsteps.

Ramos has owned his own drywall business for several years, but Alsuper remained in the back of his mind.

“This is his baby,” Caddell said. “This has been a dream of his for years, he just hasn’t found the right place at the right time.”

At El Lenador, which means “lumberjack,” Ramos will serve porchetta (a thickly sliced roasted pork dish), chamorro (steamed beef covered in sauce) and chiles rellenos (stuffed peppers), as well as popular Mexican dishes like quesadillas and tacos.

Caddell said the grocery store is eyeing a March opening, while the restaurant may not be open until May.

The supermarket and restaurant are the shopping center’s two newest tenants — near the Shawnee Mission Parkway and Frontage Road intersection — but broker Sheryl Vickers, owner of Select Sites, is seeking other businesses to fill in the strip on either side.

Alsuper will sit next to Sharks Restaurant & Billiards.

Vickers has leased several other spaces near downtown Shawnee, which has become a hot spot for bars and restaurants.

Just this summer, Wild Child, a bar specializing in nonalcoholic drinks, opened at 11022 Johnson Drive. Brewery Friction Beer Co. opened weeks before at 11018 Johnson Drive.