Miny Morales has earned the luxury of stepping back somewhat from the day-to-day demands of running a restaurant. Her three grown sons—Fernando, Rodolfo, and Rudy Gonzalez—are carrying on what she’s built.
All three work full-time at Miny’s Mexican Restaurant, which, after seven years in Ypsilanti, recently opened a second takeout location in Ann Arbor’s Lower Town.
“She’s a very emotional person, and so things like that always bring tears to her eyes,” says Rudy, the eldest. “She’s proud of us, you know. I tell her, ‘We’re who we are because of you.’ She keeps us in line.”
Their story starts in the southwest Mexican state of Michoacán. They were essentially subsistence farmers until the day, when Rudy was ten, that they immigrated to Texas.
“When my parents told me we’re going to el norte, I figured we were just going up north, to the north of the state,” he recalls. “Well, this was a long journey!”
Family connections eventually brought them to Michigan, though the boys’ father returned to Mexico, and Rudy—averse to the Michigan chill—didn’t follow them north until 2018.
Their mother worked at Dos Hermanos’s original location in Adrian and then at La Casita on Washtenaw Ave. in Pittsfield Twp. When La Casita’s owner decided to sell in 2017 to focus on his taqueria in Wixom, they worked out a payment plan for Miny to buy it. She renamed the tiny place, put her own stamp on the recipes, and business was soon strong enough for them to consider expanding. When Covid hit in 2020, they instead remodeled and focused on takeout.
Affordable tacos are the biggest draw, but the menu is expansive, from squash blossom quesadillas to a variety of huaraches—thick, house-made corn tortillas deep fried in an oval shape, topped with beans, cilantro, onions, sour cream, cheese, and a choice of meat—to the Miny burrito, whose name has misled some customers. “I had a guy once, he ordered like twelve of them. He thought they were small,” Rudy says.
One key to their success, the food’s freshness, is born of necessity. “We’re not like those big restaurants that have those big walk-in coolers” holding several days worth of tomatoes, cilantro, and such, he says. This forces them to buy ingredients throughout the week, and “the faster you use the product, you know, the fresher it’s going to be.”
Miny’s entry into Ann Arbor completes a range of international dining options in the refurbished Broadway Retail Center. Rudy says that Ron Mucha of Morningside Group made sure to try their food first, patronizing the Ypsilanti store unannounced before agreeing to lease them the former Cottage Inn space.
“He’s like, ‘You know you wouldn’t be sitting here if I didn’t like the food,’” he relates. “And so we’re pretty grateful.”
Miny’s Mexican Restaurant, 1141 Broadway. (734) 369–2419. Mon.–Sat. 11 a.m.–8 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m.–6 p.m. minysmexicanrestaurant.com
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