"Before she would say hi or anything she would ask, 'did you eat yet?'" That's how Sergio González, director of customer journey at Northgate Market, remembers his grandmother, Doña Teresa Reynoso de González. She and Don Miguel González Jiménez opened the first Northgate Market in Anaheim in 1980 in a converted liquor store. Today the family runs more than 40 stores in California. One of them is Mercado González at 2300 Harbor Blvd. in Harbor Center, just north of Harbor and Wilson. That's roughly a mile south of the Harbor and Adams corner that anchors Mesa Verde.
Doña Tere's question is now the name of a stall. This summer and early fall, the mercado added a dinner counter and then a coffee bar, one at each end of the day. Before that, the morning and the evening were the two hours it covered least.
A Stall Named for the Dinner Table
Cenaduría Doña Tere opened with a grand opening ceremony on July 16, 2026. The family marked it with a "Ringing of the Bell," a tradition drawn from towns across Mexico, where a bell calls people together. The name matters more than it might seem. A cenaduría celebrates la cena, the evening meal. The Daily Pilot's opening coverage describes it as a small, family-run neighborhood spot serving comfort food late in the evening. The format is common in Central Mexico but rare in the U.S.
"Cenaduría have very simple menus," González told the paper. People go to them because "they want a home cooked meal that taste home cooked and they want it in a way that is fast."
The menu sticks to that idea:
- Pozole rojo with pork, the stall's most popular item according to team leader Brayan Toledo. The base is made in house from guajillo, California and árbol chiles.
- Pozole verde with chicken, topped with diced white onion and shredded cabbage, with tostadas for dunking.
- Add-on cuts like pata and cabeza for the pork pozole.
- Chicken flautas with cabbage, crema, cotija and salsa; sopes de lomo on blue corn with braised pork loin; and tacos de papas.
Pozole ranges from $15 for a single portion to $70 for the paquetazo, a family package. Large tables for multigenerational groups line the wall next to the stall. González traced that setup to his grandmother's house. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, she opened her doors to "anywhere from 30 to 50 people on a given night."
The stall also gives the mercado a matched pair. Carnitas Don Miguel, named for the family patriarch, already serves Michoacán-style carnitas from the recipe the founder used at the original Anaheim market. Doña Tere's stall now carries the grandmother's side of the family table.
The Morning Was Still Missing
Dinner was only half the gap. Natalie Taormina, co-founder of Casa Libre, saw the other half.
"There was just one thing missing in the market and that's great coffee."
Casa Libre held its grand opening on Sept. 24, 2026, and staff handed out coffee samples at the door. It took longer than planned. In July, González had said the cafe would open in mid-August. Taormina put the planning at about two years.
The partners are familiar names in Orange County coffee. Taormina and her husband, Jeremy Creighton, are two of the original founders of Common Room Roasters. In 2022 they opened Freelance Coffee Project inside their branding agency, Passport Brand Design, in Newport Beach. The two families go back further than that. Their grandfathers ran businesses side by side in Anaheim.
The cafe pours only Mexican-grown coffee, roasted and packed on site at Casa Libre's Roastery and Bean Market. The current featured beans come from Doña Duglas Molina and her family at El Cielo in Villa Corzo, Chiapas. Her farm takes part in the Café Delas program, which supports women coffee producers. The Orange County Register lists that coffee's tasting notes as chocolate, red plum and honeydew melon. Other beans come from small farms near Motozintla, Chiapas, close to the Guatemalan border, and from Huatusco, Veracruz.
The drink menu draws on Mexican flavors too:
- El Jaguar latte, made with a house syrup of corn, cacao and chile that tastes a bit like the warm spices in mole.
- El Colibrí, made with café de olla syrup, a nod to the traditional cinnamon-spiced coffee.
- Pastries from Pastelería González, including a canela roll, jamón pocket, chocolate chip galleta and almond croissant, plus Casa Libre's signature colibrí galleta, a gingerbread hummingbird cookie sweetened with piloncillo.
Casa Libre sits near the main entrance, where the fresh-flower stand used to be. You can get a cappuccino at the counter or buy whole beans to brew at home. "Roasting on site is an important part of the experience," said Joshua González, Mercado González's general manager, "but also the aroma of freshly roasted coffee brings people in."
What Fills the Hours Between
With coffee near the entrance in the morning and pozole by the family tables at night, the stalls in between now cover a full day.
The brunch slot belongs to Pradera, a Mexican-inspired brunch restaurant that González said is open seven days a week. It took over the space that used to be Maizano, which closed in November 2024. Vaca Brunch & Beyond moved in during September 2025 and later rebranded as Pradera Brunch. The menu includes pancakes, waffles and French toast with Mexican-style toppings, breakfast burritos, pork-belly fried rice, ceviche, tacos, birria and enfrijoladas.
Northgate's puesto directory dates to the 2023 opening and doesn't yet list the two 2026 additions. Even so, it shows how many stalls are spread across the space. Here is one way to map a day there:
| Part of the day | New in 2026 | Already on the floor |
|---|---|---|
| Early morning | Casa Libre's single-origin espresso and colibrí galleta | Pan dulce at Pastelería La González |
| Late morning | Pradera's brunch menu; made-to-order churros and hot chocolate at Churrería El Moro | |
| Midday | Ceviches and aguachiles at Mariscos El Pariente; mesquite-grilled meats at Asados El Mesquite; tacos and mulitas at Tacos Los Guichos | |
| Afternoon | Paletas and nieves at La Nena; biónicos at Frutería El Puesto; aguas frescas at La Delicias | |
| Evening | Pozole and platos at Cenaduría Doña Tere | Birria and menudo at La Tapatia Birrieria; cocktails at Entre Nos |
| Before you leave | Whole beans from Casa Libre's bean market | Tortillas and masa from Tortillería La González; tamales from La Tamalería; cheeses at the Cremería |
The bottom row matters most to anyone stopping on the way home. Casa Libre's bean market puts a fresh bag of Chiapas coffee in the same building as the tortillería and the cremería, so tomorrow's breakfast can go home in the same trip as tonight's pozole.
Before You Drive Down Harbor
Check the hours before you go. Mercado González's Google listing shows the market open 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. The Register's preview listed Casa Libre's Sunday through Thursday hours as 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., and its Friday and Saturday hours as 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. That is a big gap, so check cafecasalibre.com before planning an after-dinner latte from Sunday through Thursday. Pradera's website and its online-ordering page list different daily hours, so confirm with the restaurant before a late brunch. No published hours turned up for Cenaduría Doña Tere. Since a cenaduría is built around dinner, calling the market ahead of a family-sized order is a good idea.
González has framed the additions as part of an ongoing push. "We've been open close to three years now and it is very much the spirit of the organization to always be asking, 'what can we do better?'" He also said that whether guests come weekly or once every six months, there will always be something new to explore. If you want more of what's opening along this stretch of Harbor, from the Mesa Verde end down to Wilson, bouHAUS follows it closely and is glad to share what's next on the corridor.
