Mexican food is thriving along Port Royal’s Ribaut Road. Newest arrival banking on brisket

The unquenchable hunger that north-of-the-Broad River residents seemingly have for Mexican food, whether it’s street tacos, burritos, quesadillas or Mexican brisket, is exemplified by 2 1/2-mile stretch of Ribaut Road in Port Royal.

Ribuat is named after a Frenchman. But today, it’s common to hear Spanish-language Mexican music wafting from outdoor speakers onto the busy road connecting Beaufort and Port Royal along with the aroma of slow-roasted beef and spices as several Mexican restaurants compete nearly side-by-side for Lowcountry customers.

The two most recent Mexican restaurants to set up business there are Pedro’s Tacos at 1742 Ribaut and Rancho Grande, 1281 Ribaut. Both are owned by 32-year-old Pedro Solorio, whose Beaufort family arrived in the city 23 years ago from central Mexico and now run four Mexican restaurants in Beaufort and Port Royal with a fifth in the works.

Pedro Solorio credits a love for the restaurant business and the region’s love for Mexican food and hard work for the growth of the family business.

“I love being part of this beautiful town,” says Solorio, seated on the outdoor patio of his Dos Amigos Mexican Grill and Tequila Bar in Beaufort on a 68-degree November day, as a new Marine graduate, still in his dress blues from a graduation ceremony, enters the restaurant with his family. “I’m blessed to be here. I love to be a part of the community.”

From humble beginnings

When Pedro Solorio came to Beaufort in 2001 from Guanajuato, a central Mexico city of 200,000, he was 8 years old and didn’t know a lick of English. With no friends, he tagged along with his father who worked as a server in a local restaurant.

It wasn’t too long before Solorio was washing dishes, overcoming his initial reluctance to put his hands in the dirty water. He learned to speak the country’s primary language, worked hard and gradually fell in love with the restaurant business and the idea of making money doing what he loved.

Now he’s running the show.

His most recent restaurant is Pedro’s Taco’s, which is housed in a tiny remodeled building just before the bridge to Parris Island. It’s serving up big flavors in imaginative dishes.

Tender Mexican brisket, called birria, is a big seller and prepared in creative ways ranging from a 14-inch pizza birria to quesabirria tacos to noodles and beef appropriately named ramenbirria. Mexican hot dogs are on the menu as well.

“I wanted to do something different from my current restaurants,” Solorio says.

While three of his restaurants offer a full-service dining experience including cocktails, Pedro’s is a California-style restaurant where “everything is possible,” says Solorio, from sit-down to pickup to drive-through. The brisket dishes make it different, too. When he was rising through the ranks at restaurants, Solorio says, “people would never eat birria.”

“Now everyone wants birria,” he says. “It’s one of our top sellers at Pedro’s. I think I’m the future on the East Coast with these dishes.”

Rancho Grande, which opened early in the year, was the Solorio family’s first restaurant on Ribaut. For 15 years, Rancho Grande was a staple in the Island Square Shopping Center on Lady’s Island. The restaurant was started by Solorio’s parents, Luis and Maria, but the lease arrangement changed and Solorio set out to find a new location he could own and settled on Ribaut Road.

“Everything has a beginning and an ending,” says Solorio. At the same time, because it factors so prominently in the family’s restaurant journey, the family “didn’t want Rancho Grande to die” either. Since the move to Ribaut Road, sales jumped 30% to 40%, Solorio says.

French road attracts Mexican restaurants

Ribaut Road is a four-lane collector road with two lanes in each direction between Beaufort and Port Royal.

It’s known for its congested traffic and as the gateway to the Sea Islands and the U.S. Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island.

But increasingly, the road, named after French Captain Jean Ribaut, who was sent to the new world to establish a colony for French protestants, is becoming the place to go for for Mexican cuisine with residents having plenty of choices.

In one 2.6-mile span, there are four restaurants serving Mexican food.

Agave Mexican Grill at 1430 Ribaut Road and La Nopalera, 1220 Ribaut Road, located less than a mile apart, were already in business when Soloria came along with his two restaurants.

Solorio opened Rancho Grande about half way in between the two established restaurants. He had initial concerns about locating a restaurant so close to the competition — and just down the road from his own Pedro’s Tacos, which was in the works at the time. In the end, Solorio concluded he just needed to “do me, be me” and not worry about his neighbors.

As for Pedro’s, which is located about a mile south of the Rancho Grande-Agave-La Nopalera cluster, he figured it would do well because its take-out and drive-through set up and menu was different from the sit-down restaurants.

Why the popularity?

Why the popularity of local Mexican restaurants? Solorio has some thoughts.

Mexican restaurants can make people feel as if they are eating at a five-star restaurant because people can sit down and have a cocktail, Solorio says. At the same time, he adds, they remain affordable like a fast-food restaurant.

When he was growing up, Solorio says, he was raised to smile and say ‘good morning’ and ‘excuse me.’

“Now, these days, things have changed,” he says. “There’s a lot of hate. There’s a lot of misunderstanding of how people really are.”

But employees of his restaurants, he says, are still advised be positive. That positive attitude toward customer service is another factor in the popularity of Mexican restaurants, especially in today’s divided America, Solorio says. “That means a lot,” Solorio says.

Coming to America

Solorio’s father, Luis, who split time working in Mexico and in farm fields in California, was able to bring the family to the United States as a result of the 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli Immigration Reform and Control Act signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, Solorio says.

That legislation made certain immigrants eligible for temporary legal status and eventually green cards, primarily those who were continuously present in the U.S. since Jan. 1, 1982 and special agricultural workers. Luis Solorio applied and it took about 10 years to get approved, said.

Solorio still recalls the day when his father returned to their home in Mexico and informed family members that they were moving to the United States and immediately. He said, “we got to go,” Solorio said. “That’s when we got approved to come.”

Initially, the family stayed at the home of Solorio’s uncle, who owned a restaurant called La Hacienda on Boundary Street (the current location of Sea Eagle Market) in Beaufort where Solorios’ father worked as a server. Solorio, who had no friends and did not know English, would go to the restaurant after school. “I just wanted to be around my Dad,” he said.

One day, his father told him to help out with washing dishes. “Little by little I kind of fell in love with it,” he says of the restaurant industry.

Today, his parents still live in Beaufort and remain Solorio’s biggest supporters and partners in the restaurants. His sister, Isabella, is region manager.

Tacos: Hold the beef and lettuce

While the Mexican food has proven to be a local favorite, it’s not exactly what’s being served back in Solorio’s native Mexico.

Authentic Mexican food is flavored with more traditional spices and is generally spicier than the food he serves, says Solorio.

“I don’t even think I can say it’s Tex-Mex anymore,” he says, referring to the blend of Mexican and southern American features common in the border regions of Texas and Mexico.

Rather, he says, the dishes he serves are more “eastern Tex Mex,” meaning the flavor is influenced by the East Coast.

“People love it,” he says. “We try to do our food a little more mild for our customers.”

The popularity of tacos is increasing, says Solorio, but not just any old tacos.

“You imagine tacos have been around the whole time — yea like Taco Bell tacos,” says Solorio, referring to Americanized tacos with ground beef and lettuce and cheese.

Rather, it is street tacos, with a corn tortilla, steak, onions and the herb cilantro, that customers want today, he says. “They like real Mexican tacos,” he said.

Big plans for the future

Beaufort is a long way from Guanajuato — 1,800 miles and a world away but the central Mexico region where the Solorio family comes from has long been known for the entrepreneurs who headed north looking to become established in the restaurant business. They often start out as employees before moving into management positions and then stepping out to open their own restaurants, just like Solorio and his father.

These central Mexico natives now have restaurants across the South, says Solorio. “Where I am from, that’s all we do is restaurants,” he says.

In 2025, Solorio is planning to open a fifth restaurant, this one on Lady’s Island. He has yet to announce the location. Customers have been requesting that the family return to the island ever since it moved Rancho Grande to Port Royal, he says.

The Battery Creek High School graduate also owns Maria’s Mexican Kitchen at 330 Robert Smalls Parkway.

In another big development for the family business, Solorio is planning to close Dos Amigos Mexican Grill and Tequila Bar at 2121 Boundary Street in the Beaufort Town Center at the end of December and reopen in the former Jade Garden Cuisine Chinese restaurant at 2317 Boundary St.

The move is part of Solorio’s goal to own the land where each of his restaurants is located.

People sometimes ask Solorio why he doesn’t expand in Savannah, Bluffton or Hilton Head. He isn’t ruling it out.

“But right now I need to focus on Beaufort,” he says. “Beaufort has given me everything so Beaufort deserves the best of me.”

He says he’ll never leave the city of 14,000.

“If you ask me,” says Solorio, ‘Where do you want to be buried?’ Beaufort.”