La Michoacana Express is the latest venture from brothers Alex (left) and Hiram Arreola. The Mexican-style ice cream shop is located within their fast-casual restaurant, Dos Hermanos Express. | J. Adrian Wylie
The latest scoop from Scio Township: the ambitious Arreola brothers have added a Mexican paletería within Dos Hermanos Express.
La Michoacana Express features a colorful array of ice creams, aguas frescas, popsicles, yogurts, raspados (shaved ice), confection-covered bananas, and other desserts. Savory snacks range from loaded nachos to Mexican street corn to the pickled pork rinds called cueritos.
“There’s nothing like this around here,” says Alex Arreola, the older of the two twenty-something brothers. He and Hiram handled the bulk of the buildout themselves, removing a wall to expand into what had been an office space with help from their father Reyes, one of the original Dos Hermanos (“Two Brothers”) who built the business from a Mexican market in Ypsilanti.
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“It’s a lot of work, a lot of sacrifice,” says Hiram, “We missed our summer, but at the end of the day it’s all gonna be worth it.”
La Michoacana is a California-based brand that distributes to thousands of stores, eateries, and independent shops. The name—fortuitously similar to Michigan—refers to a girl or woman from the southwest Mexican state of Michoacán.
“Every time we’d go to Chicago, we used to go to the ice cream shop out there,” explains Alex. “And we would always say, ‘Man, one day we want to have one of these.’”
For a onetime fee, the company set them up with layout plans, merchandising decor, recipes, and training. Of the twenty-four varieties of ice cream and nondairy sorbets, Hiram’s favorite is the (nonalcoholic) tequila.
The brothers see the paletería as a natural complement to their Dos Hermanos Express’s fast-casual Mexican offerings. “People eat, and then they’ll come over here and grab a snack,” Alex says. “What’s a better combo than that?”
Since launching last year, Alex says, business has gone better than expected, especially at lunchtime, and they “feel very supported by the community.”
They now employ six, but each brother still works about seventy-five hours per week, keeping their eyes on the future. Aside from their small paychecks, “it all gets reinvested back into the business,” Alex says. They’re planning to expand the combined concept to more area locations.
“We’re really fast learners, and when we want something, we’re going to do it,” he says. Within five years, “we want to make a difference around here. We want people to know our brand, who we are, because we support the community as well.”
La Michoacana Express, 25 Jackson Industrial Dr. (734) 780–7388. Mon.–Thurs. 11 a.m.–8 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 11 a.m.–9 p.m., Sun. noon–9 p.m. instagram.com/lamichoacanaexpress_a2
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