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Upper Fells Point

South Broadway

Sept. 9, 2011

10. Bienvenidos

Nicolás Ramos came to the United States when he was 16, picking broccoli and cauliflower on a Texas farm, and loading boxes of cucumber, squash, cantaloupe and watermelon into refrigerated trucks.

With his brother Carlos, and another friend, he eventually socked away $700, enough money to buy a wood-paneled Ford station wagon from a nearby junkyard. Leaving the farm in search of better prospects, the Coahuila, Mexico-native discovered a different group of Latinos in San Antonio—established middle class families. “In San Antonio, I met people who looked liked me, but I didn’t understand why they didn’t speak Spanish,” laughs Ramos, now 51, and the owner of South Broadway’s popular Arcos Restaurant. “It was disarming. I said, ‘We’ve got to go North where there are more white people and better economic chances.”

“I picked Memphis, Elvis Presley’s town,” he continues, shaking his head at the randomness of it all. Unlucky in Tennessee, he and his brother headed for Arkansas, then east, with five other Mexican buddies crammed into the station wagon, to Georgia and South Carolina. “We were day laborers, standing outside the 7-Eleven.”

Finally landing in Laurel, hired for Route 1 construction gigs, genuine opportunity arrived. “A lady showed up one day and said, ‘Hey guys, we want to get you worker’s permits,’” Ramos says. “We came in from the shadows.”

He and Carlos, now deceased, purchased a functional pickup truck and took English classes. In 1986, President Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, providing amnesty and a path to citizenship. Four years later, Dry Wall and Painting by Ramos opened in Upper Fells Point at a time when Latino community barely registered a blip on Baltimore’s radar.

“When I came to Baltimore there were two Latino businesses on Broadway, La Botanica, a tiny, pharmacy/convenience store, La Internationale, a grocery/discount store,” Ramos says. “Since 1990, we did a lot of construction work.”

Married at St. Michael’s Church (a longtime home for Baltimore Latinos before it was closed due to age) he bought his first home at 17 St. Ann St. with a personal loan for the down payment from a church deacon. Eventually, Ramos bought 10 buildings, including the one at 129 S. Broadway that houses Arcos.

Recycling heavy beams and hardwood from Fells Point and Canton homes, pews and frosted glass from a Washington, D.C. church that he rehabbed, Ramos spent four years crafting the bar, tables, chairs, doors and patio inside his restaurant. He added authentic Talavera tiles, Mexican artifacts and photographs, finished the original brick interior, and launched Arcos for Cinco de Mayo in 2005.

Today, Ramos has four children, including a daughter at Dickinson College. He’s served on the Governor’s Hispanic Affairs Commission, as president of Baltimore City’s Hispanic Business Association and as part of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s transition team. He’s hosted events for Gov. Martin O’Malley, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Rawlings-Blake and Odette Ramos, who ran for city council this year.

“Do you know what Arcos means?” Ramos asks. “Arches. Arches connect two points. I wanted to bring a little bit of culture, food and ambience of Mexico to Baltimore. “I saw the potential and fell love with in Baltimore,” he continues. “Looking down from Johns Hopkins to Fells Point, I could see the possibilities. But on Broadway there was prostitution, crime and drugs [in the 90s]. You couldn’t walk the street at night. Now, we call it Latino town or Spanish town and everybody sees what I saw.”