AIKEN — Mario Pena and two of his friends, Francisco Molina and Juan Soto, are the owners of Totopos, a new Mexican restaurant on the Southside.
“We all live in Graniteville,” said Pena, who is a USC Aiken graduate. “We have wanted to have a restaurant for five years at least. It has been our dream. We’ve dined around the area, and there was nothing that we liked, so we decided to do our own thing.”
Totopos made its debut in late September with a soft opening at 510 Silver Bluff Road, which most recently was the location of Victoria, another Mexican eatery.
“One day I drove by here and I saw a sign that the property was for lease,” Pena said.
He told his friends and they worked together quickly to make their dream a reality.
“We pretty much planned everything in one night,” Pena said. “We talked about how we were going to do this restaurant. We were jotting things down kind of like in a notebook — this is the name, this is what we want the vibe to be.”
Much of the décor in Totopos features bright colors, cacti, flowers, butterflies and birds.
“We want to bring Mexico to Aiken,” Pena said. “We want to be festive. We want customers to come in and feel like they are at a fiesta, where they can enjoy good music and good authentic Mexican food.”
Pena described Totopos’ salsas as “very” spicy.
“We want to be authentic in every respect,” he said. “If you order enchiladas or whatever, you’re going to get the real deal. Our chorizo (pork sausage) is made in house. Everything is made fresh. The tortillas are handmade. Everything is made from scratch pretty much.”
So far, the response of diners has been positive, according to Pena.
“We’ve already had good reviews [online],” he said. “One guy ordered mole for his wife, and she told me, herself, that she is really picky about mole. She had had mole from all over the place around here and she loved ours, so that’s good news.”
Dining and Cooking