Depending on how often you’ve eaten at Cinco International over the past 12 or so years it’s been open, you could be forgiven for looking around and thinking you always seem to be eating in a different restaurant. Not that the changes have been going on every day, but compared with the history of the place, it’s been on the fast track.
“When we started [in] the building, the layout was whatever it was 50 years ago,” owner Leonardo Duran says.
But before any changes could be made, the restaurant in downtown South Bend, Indiana, had to get off the ground.
Duran’s father, Juan Duran, had worked in the restaurant business for 30 or 40 years, coming to this area with his family when the company he worked for sent him to open a Houlihan’s in Mishawaka.
He eventually became a chef at Siam Thai on North Main Street in South Bend and was one of the last chefs there before it closed in 2015. The owners gave Juan Duran the rights to the recipes, and he and some partners embarked on realizing his dream of having his own restaurant.
And thus Cinco International was born.
The name reflects the vision Juan Duran had for his own place. “He didn’t want to be labeled as a Mexican restaurant,” Leonardo Duran said. A few years in, Leonardo bought the partners’ and then his father’s interests in the restaurant. Duran saw the potential for the physical space and began thinking about his own vision for Cinco.
He and his staff pared down the menu from four pages of dishes from different cuisines to two pages of Thai and Mexican offerings that were the biggest hits with customers. Top among those offerings, Duran says, is the khao pad—stir-fried jasmine rice with chicken, egg, bean sprouts and other vegetables in a Thai sauce. Also big with customers (“kind of a must,” Duran says) is one of the simplest dishes: totopos and salsa. The totopos (chips) are cooked fresh in-house and served with homemade salsa.
The Thai dishes will be familiar to anyone who remembers Siam Thai. Those recipes have not changed much, Duran says. The Mexican dishes are cooked the way his family would cook them at home. Duran says there really isn’t any culinary fusion going on in the kitchen. That happens at the table, with guests ordering the egg rolls as an appetizer and then a Mexican entrée, for example.
The food is just one part of the vibe at Cinco. Some years back, Duran and his staff had The Big Idea. “Before Covid we wanted to change it up,” Duran says. “We had the idea of having a rooftop bar. Of course, the idea was good, but it would take a lot of capital.”
Then Covid hit, but his vision remained undeterred. “I could have said ‘I’m not gonna do it,’” he says, but he continued to plan, finally embarking on what he calls phase one.
That involved knocking down some walls (including one right in the middle of the dining area) to open up the restaurant more, removing a staircase in one part of the room and building a new one in another section. The restrooms have also undergone a complete renovation.
Once phase one is finished, it’s on to phase (and floor) two. The goal is to convert and expand the second floor into a multiuse area, complete with a bar, that allows for private events, overflow dining on busy downtown nights and other activities. From there, the plan is to only go up, ultimately to that rooftop bar, all the while keeping a close eye on the quality of the food and service in the restaurant.
“All these years,” he says, “it’s just like learning as we go.” He says he and his staff, which includes a mix of friends and family, have gotten better at what works over the years.
Cinco has grown not just in square footage, but also in a deeper, richer way through the relationships built between the staff and their guests, many of whom have been eating there a long time. “We meet people here,” he says. “It’s just meeting them and getting to know them.”
“Most of my staff have been here five-plus years,” he says. “Our success has a lot to do with, of course, our neighbors—the Morris, other restaurants—and a lot of key staff who have made Cinco happen. And that’s why guests come in.”
CINCO International
112 W. Colfax Ave.
South Bend, IN
574.520.1455
cinco5sb.com
Mike Petrucelli is a former food editor for the South Bend Tribune who now works in nonprofit communications. He and his wife live in Plymouth, Indiana.
