As lunch rush ends in the city of Yuma, a small crowd exits the small, colorful dining room of the Mexsu restaurant at the far end of Main St. Co-owner Juan Carlos is sitting by a window, engaged in deep conversation with an older customer.

“Especially in this community, you can have that interaction because I know 80 or 90 — if not more — percentage of my clients,” he said. “I always kind of know already what he wants, what she doesn't.”

In 2019, Carlos, 37, moved to Yuma from California with his girlfriend — and now business partner — 30-year-old Maribel Ayon, to be with family. About a year and a half later, the couple toured an empty main street storefront and quickly decided to throw their savings into opening a restaurant.

“It was crazy because we didn't know what to expect,” Carlos said of the restaurant’s first two days in operation. The first day was slow, but then so many people showed by word of mouth on the second day that the restaurant had to shut down hours early. “We were not expecting to have what we have so far, which is amazing.”

Carlos said he was “not at all” scared to be starting a new business in an unfamiliar community in the middle of a pandemic. 

The city of Yuma is Yuma County’s largest population center, with about 3,500 residents. State data show 18 new businesses have opened up alongside Mexsu just on the city’s Main St. since 2020.

“I was scared,” Ayon said. “But that helped me personally, (Carlos) not being scared. Because him having the courage, definitely led me to more having that courage as well.”

“Now that I think about it, it sounds scary, man,” Carlos said. “What the hell? Why would you do that? It's crazy. Don't spend your money on something that is so uncertain.”

Adding to the uncertainty was the couple’s decision to serve this “beef town” the fare traditionally found in food stands along the western Mexican coast: sushi and tacos.

“We wanted to just to be a hamburger place, because that's what we thought the city needed,” Ayon said. “But to be honest, we didn't feel comfortable because it's not who we are. So we said, let's just embrace what we eat and who we are.”

She and Carlos spent large chunks of their childhoods in northwest Mexico’s Sinaloa state, particularly in the coastal cities Mazatlán and Culiacán. Ayon also went to culinary school in Mexico.

The couple can tell their bet paid off, by watching sales rise monthly and by watching community members who think they “don’t like sushi” expand their palate.

“You go safe first with bacon, steak and mayo, cream cheese and avocado. And then you switch to baked salmon or some octopus,” Carlos said, explaining that Mexsu’s ever-changing menu is designed to ease people into the less familiar foods by including sushi rolls filled with cooked bacon and beef, for example. “Eventually they try the raw stuff.”

New economic development is also flourishing a 40-minute drive east in Wray, the second-largest city in Yuma County.

A new health care clinic opens in Wray

Dr. Monte Uyemura just opened a new doctor’s office with a unique subscription-based model on Wray’s Main St. six months ago.

“Rather than pay fee for service, people pay a membership fee, either a monthly membership fee or annually. But basically, it pays for everything that I can do in my clinic,” Uyemura said. That includes limited blood analysis, he added, though anything sent to an external lab, for example, would have to be paid separately.

He left his Wray Family Clinic partnership after 25 years, feeling the practice was stable and in “good hands,” and finally fulfilled his pandemic-delayed dream of opening Uyemura Family Medicine.

“I had been thinking about this for seven years probably. And prior to this, there just wasn't a good time,” he said. “I didn't want my kids to just see me dream about something like this and then never do it.”

Going solo with this “direct primary care” model, Uyemura said, allows him to do more preventive care, spend an hour with each patient rather than just 15 minutes, and spend less time on paperwork since insurance isn’t involved. The cost ranges from $15 to $80 a month depending on the patient’s age.

Many critics argue the direct primary care model is just “concierge medicine,” a form of health care they say widens inequality gaps by guaranteeing special treatment to a wealthy few. Uyemura and many other DPC doctors disagree.

“My membership fees are, I think, comparable to what you would pay if you're paying for cell phone service,” he said. “A person could come see me 10 times in a month and pay no further co-pays.”

While he does see DPC as part of the solution to the healthcare access and quality crisis facing the country, he said it isn’t the whole solution — and definitely isn’t the best option for everybody.

“It's not that I advocate and recommend not having insurance,” Uyemura said, adding that many of his members currently do in case they need to be hospitalized, for example. “But for some people who don't have insurance, at least I can try to keep them out of the emergency room… and try to do some preventive medicine stuff so they can have a little bit of peace of mind that they at least have somebody that they can turn to.”

The model is slowly gaining popularity among doctors nationwide, though the majority are in urban or suburban areas where it’s easier to get many subscribers. (Though another DPC does exist in nearby Sterling.) But Uyemura said he would not want to do this “experiment” anywhere else.

He estimates he needs at least 600 “members” for financial success, but said the about 250 he has now are enough to keep the lights on at least. His goal is to partner with local businesses that can offer a membership with him to employees instead of — or as a supplement to — health insurance plans.

“I just think that it's another option in the community to actually improve what we can offer (to workers),” Uyemura said, adding he’s proud of “how well we do in our health care in this community, despite being 100 miles from the nearest Wal-Mart.”

A classic car gallery withstands the pandemic

While many new businesses were started during the pandemic across Colorado, state data show the number of established businesses that folded is high too. The Orphanage, a classic car gallery on Yuma's Main St., is among those still standing.

“We like to say about The Orphanage, expect the unexpected,” said 67-year-old Ron Wenger, the classic car gallery’s co-owner. “And I think we live up to that.”

Born and raised in Yuma, Wenger has owned the auto repair shop across from the gallery since 1977.

“The dirty, greasy side is over there,” he said, beaming with pride. “This is the shiny clean side.”

Wenger left Yuma for about 20 years to try life in Denver. After moving back with his husband, Richard Birnie, Wenger started running out of room for the classic cars he’d collected in the repair shop. The gallery’s name is a reference to the term for car models the parent company no longer creates: orphans. Birnie, a former landscape architect, made the gallery his retirement project.

“And we thought, well, we could probably rent the place out for events. And then we also liked the idea of showing local artists here too,” Birnie said. “So it evolved very quickly.”

Birnie talks with pride about how he developed interesting ways to display the art, pointing to one exhibit featuring local quilters’ work draped over car hoods.

“It's definitely a gathering place for the community,” Birnie said.

The Orphanage’s first event was in late 2018. Since then they’ve hosted a prom, a wedding, award ceremonies and a variety of other gatherings.

When the pandemic hit in early 2020, they shut down and refused requests to book the space until that summer as a precaution.

“We didn't do it for a profit motive and it's held true to that,” Wenger said, leading both men to share a hearty chuckle. “Yeah, but it's our passion. We're willing to invest money in it.”

Despite the event bookings, they don’t break even on the gallery. It’s supported with funds from the more financially stable repair shop, but both are OK with that.

“It's basically showing off our cars in a really nice space and helping local artists,” Birnie said. “Some of them have never displayed their work before.”

“People are always surprised to see this in Yuma. We have comments like, ‘Oh, this is something you would expect along the Front Range,” Wenger, who was born in the city, said. “(Hearing that) just makes me euphoric. I love it. Sometimes you wonder if your work has been worth it, but that is a sign that it totally is.”

The couple are grateful for the local chamber of commerce’s “First Friday Art Walks” for driving foot traffic to the gallery and the rest of Yuma’s Main St. The Orphanage’s cars and other displays are constantly changing to ensure visitors still get something out of repeat visits.

“It's nice to see all the cars parked down the street once again, because I've seen it pretty bare down here,” Birnie said.

This story was produced as part of the America Amplified initiative using community engagement to inform and strengthen local, regional and national journalism. America Amplified is a public media initiative funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.