Alaska Public Media | ByTegan Hanlon
Published August 29, 2024 at 4:35 PM AKDT
During dinner time at Salsa Oaxaqueña in Anchorage Alaska, patrons are often serenaded. In the back corner of the small Spenard restaurant is a stage with a large standing bluetooth speaker and a microphone. Cezar Flores often performs in the restaurant, belting out corridos, rancheras, mariachis and other traditional music from Mexico and Latin America.
“It’s beautiful, he said. “Other places have a radio, but here it’s like real people, real singers, real everything. Live music, especially for Alaska, I love it.”
Siblings Rosi and Abraham Martinez Marthel, along with his wife Selena Vázquez-Lopez, are part-owners of the new restaurant, which opened July 1. It was Abraham’s idea to offer karaoke.
“A family member came and started singing and people liked it,” Vázquez-Lopez said. “They thought it was something different. But, anyone who likes to sing is welcome to sing.”
The family moved to Alaska from Mexico in the last decade. They’re part of a growing Latino and Hispanic community in Anchorage. Inspired by a desire to share cultures, create community spaces and bring something new to the Alaska restaurant scene, Salsa Oaxaqueña is just one of several new Hispanic and Latino-owned restaurants that have opened in Anchorage this year.
During dinner time at Salsa Oaxaqueña in Anchorage, patrons are often serenaded. In the back corner of the small Spenard restaurant is a stage with a large standing bluetooth speaker and a microphone. Cezar Flores often performs in the restaurant, belting out corridos, rancheras, mariachis and other traditional music from Mexico and Latin America.
“It’s beautiful, he said. “Other places have a radio, but here it’s like real people, real singers, real everything. Live music, especially for Alaska, I love it.”
Siblings Rosi and Abraham Martinez Marthel, along with his wife Selena Vázquez-Lopez, are part-owners of the new restaurant, which opened July 1. It was Abraham’s idea to offer karaoke.
“A family member came and started singing and people liked it,” Vázquez-Lopez said. “They thought it was something different. But, anyone who likes to sing is welcome to sing.”
The family moved to Alaska from Mexico in the last decade. They’re part of a growing Latino and Hispanic community in Anchorage. Inspired by a desire to share cultures, create community spaces and bring something new to the Alaska restaurant scene, Salsa Oaxaqueña is just one of several new Hispanic and Latino-owned restaurants that have opened in Anchorage this year.
And these new businesses aren’t limited to the city. Lina Mariscal, owner of the French Bakery and the editor of Anchorage’s Spanish newspaper, Sol De Medianoche, said she’s noticed a handful of new Latino and Hispanic-owned eateries popping up across the state.
“It’s exciting to see just how much new business we have, how many different ways of preparing something there is,” she said.
Alaska’s Hispanic and Latino population grows
In Kenai, where Mariscal first lived when she moved here with her family in 1983, a new Puerto Rican food truck called Ay Que Rico also opened up this month. Since she first arrived on that sunny August day in 1983, Alaska’s Hispanic and Latino population has grown rapidly.
“When we lived in Kenai, the only Spanish-speaking families were my grandma and us,” she said. “And every time you heard Spanish somewhere, you were excited to hear it, and it was just something that you know, you were not expecting.”
If you go:
Salsa Oaxaquena
3505 Spenard Road, Suite B
Anchorage, Alaska 99503
907-865-5375
www.SalsaOaxaquena.com