A game-changing mercado sparks a question: ‘Why Costa Mesa? Why not Santa Ana?’
In 2018, the popular Northgate González supermarket chain announced plans to shutter its downtown Santa Ana store to make way for a development project of apartments and retail space. It wasn’t the most earth-shattering news for the region, but it was upsetting to many Mexican American families in the heavily Latino seat of Orange County. The downtown Santa Ana Northgate was the first built from the ground up, and the eighth store ever in an empire that has since grown to 44 markets today.The downtown market, in a…