It wasn’t that long ago when Jesusa “Jessie” Rojas would drive two hours in the snarled traffic of Los Angeles just to drop her son at day care and then get to her work as a housekeeper. Today, as a Toledo transplant, her commute is 10 minutes.
“Los Angeles is really loud and too much traffic — traffic is really bad there,” Rojas said. “I used to have two to three houses daily and I was really picky with myself in cleaning the houses. I have to be perfect. I used to hire people working for me but I wasn’t really happy with them so I do the houses by myself.
“Sometimes I used to get home really late, depending on how big the house. When I told people I was going to move they say, ‘No.’ Now they call me and say ‘When are you going back?’ and I say ‘No, I’m not going back.’
She loves the change, she said. And her 9-year-old son loves his new school.
Rojas moved to California from Mexico when she was 17. For 26 years, it was home. She became a Toledo resident on the urgings of her four cousins who already lived there. Together, the five of them opened an authentic Mexican Restaurant, in October. Los Dos Gallos, which translates as “the two roosters,” can be found at 5327 Dorr St., the site of a former Mexican restaurant called Amigos.
“Now, it takes me 10 minutes to get to the restaurant and my son can be with me at the restaurant. It’s a lot better. Now I live in my own house. In the beginning, when I came, I used to live with one of my cousins.”
Three years ago, Rojas, 44, came to Toledo to visit her cousins in Toledo, who moved here from California about seven years ago. They worked at other Mexican restaurants around Toledo and wanted to open up their own.
The restaurant has a steady stream of customers and Rojas recently hired a part-time worker to help her with customers and serving food. Her four cousins — Gilberto Contreras, Ramon Duarte, Gersain Rojas and Dalvomero Rojas — are chefs.
The restaurant begins serving at 10 a.m. daily and seats 225 people. A room in the back is perfect for meetings and to celebrate birthdays, Rojas said.
“We have a lot of customers that come at least once a week. They bring their friends and family to our restaurant,” Rojas said. “My cousins, they know how to cook Mexican restaurant food — authentic Mexican food. Everybody loves it.”
