Customers enjoy an afternoon meal at the new Los Ocampo restaurant that opened Monday on Marshall Avenue. The art on the left wall depicts various landmarks and traditions from around the Twin Cities. (Anna Brennan/The Crest) 
The exterior of the newly-opened Los Ocampo on Marshall Avenue. The location is about two blocks from the University of St. Thomas, of which its co-owner, Julian Ocampo, is a recent graduate. (Anna Brennan/The Crest) 
Co-owner Julian Ocampo works behind the bar at the new Los Ocampo. The restaurant is the third of that name since Ocampo’s parents, Armando Ocampo and Lili Sagal, who are majority owners, opened the first location in 2003. (Anna Brennan/The Crest) 
A collage of historically-themed Mexican art greets customers upon entry. (Anna Brennan/The Crest) 
Colorful sombreros line the walls of the restaurant, lit by bright string lights that hang throughout the restaurant. (Anna Brennan/The Crest)
As an undergraduate student at St. Thomas, Julian Ocampo faced a dilemma familiar to many students, past and present: a lack of quality Mexican food near campus.
“There (were) no restaurants here; I remember everybody was struggling,” Ocampo said. “Everybody went to Chipotle, way down there, but then people had to pack into cars because only one person had a car and all that.”
Now, six years after he graduated from the Opus College of Business in 2018, Ocampo is providing students and community members with exactly what he lacked with a newly-opened Los Ocampo restaurant at the intersection of Marshall and Cretin avenues, two blocks from the university.
Ocampo co-owns the restaurant, now the third of its kind, with his parents, Armando Ocampo and Lili Sagal, who are majority owners, having opened the first Los Ocampo in 2003. Julian said he became more closely involved with the business while studying at St. Thomas; he opened his first restaurant for the chain when he was a junior.
While the brand has restaurants elsewhere, Julian said the opportunity to integrate into his alma mater’s neighborhood was exciting. The bright white walls of the new restaurant are lit by warm hanging lights and adorned with decorations that evoke not just its Mexican roots, but also its place in the Twin Cities community.
Julian’s wife, Emma, who serves as the company’s controller, said that she felt welcomed by community members in the weeks and months before opening.
“I feel like everybody is excited for us, which makes us more excited to be here,” Emma said. “Everybody who stops by and pokes their head in and asks when we’re opening is super excited.”
Julian said he looks forward to collaborating with St. Thomas organizations to host events and incorporate Los Ocampo into campus culture.
He also plans to integrate students’ dining dollars as an accepted form of payment, an idea Julian said came about when he met Patricia Conde-Brooks, St. Thomas’ executive director of student engagement, at a university-hosted Hispanic job fair last year. While the service is not yet operational, he said that incorporating the St. Thomas system came hand-in-hand with the company’s recent streamlining of other points of service like Uber Eats and DoorDash.
“It was just another thing to integrate with,” Julian said. “At this point, all the POSes, if they want to be competitive, they have to be able to do that. If not, they’re going to get left behind.”
Emma said that she has been spearheading a modernization of the Los Ocampo brand — both in terms of aesthetic appearance and business efficiency — and that streamlining the creation and recipe behind each dish was at the top of the company’s list.
The restaurant’s quesabarria tacos represent the best of Los Ocampo’s flavor-filled menu; the toasty corn tortillas and thick mozzarella soak in the consomé broth and lime juice provided, making for a bite full of juiciness and texture that remains snugly enclosed in its crispy exterior.
The menu’s Mexican nachos follow the same principle: none of its ingredients stand as being particularly flavorful, but each element is stacked in such harmony that you can’t help but take in large, satisfying helpings at once.
The chimiqueso burrito combines the dense textures of the restaurant’s quesabarria tacos with the savvy layered flavors of its nachos; the queso blanco covering it may overpower much of the flavor inside, but the burrito’s fried contents meld together into an ultimately satisfying mass of spice-tinged protein underneath their heavy cream envelope.
While it may be pricey for an average night out, Los Ocampo is everything that Julian — much less any St. Thomas student — could hope for in local Mexican cuisine. Its menu offers the comfort of well-tested and made-to-satisfy food, and its inviting interior feels familiar even as it highlights what sets its business apart.
Julian said that, having combined his skills learned as a Tommie with his passion for his family’s business, he feels confident in the new location’s place within the business, as well as within the St. Thomas neighborhood.
“It’s always crazy opening a new location, but this has definitely been a lot more like, ‘I know everything’s going to work out,” Julian said.
Kevin Lynch can be reached at lync1832@stthomas.edu.