German Osio: Mexican Restauranteur Building an Empire in the Valley and Beyond

By Editor July 5, 2016 15:04

By: Brian Garrido

Named in 2015 as a “Mover & Shaker” in Phoenix Magazine and earlier this year as “Latinos Under 35” by AZLatinos.com, German Osio has in a quick six years defined himself as a prime leader in the Valley’s growing food scene. Starting with the 2010 success of Local Bistro in North Scottsdale, Osio has opened three additional restaurants including Central Bistro, SumoMaya, and Kale & Clover – with a fifth debuting in 2016 at The Colony, just a few blocks down from Fox Concepts, The Yard. (Earlier in the year, he sold Central Bistro located in the Camelback corridor, which has since closed.)

“I always considered myself to be American, but my heart is Mexican,” he says while sitting in his cosmopolitan Sumo Maya. “Los Angeles was our summer (place). Mexico City was our home but I grew up in Connecticut.”

Born in the well-to-do area of Bosque de las Lomas, Mexico, Distrito Federal, Osio and his older sister grew up traveling the world. Spain. New York. Los Angeles. He even attended and graduated from the highly acclaimed Switzerland-based Les Roches International School of Hotel Management. His father, born in Colorado (whose parents hailed from Asturias, an area near the Spain-France border) was in commercial real estate while his mother looked after the family.

Osio’s childhood upbringing and schooling were in the rarefied world of Connecticut, traversing south of the border every three or four days. “It’s interesting,” states Osio. “I didn’t grow-up in Mexico per se, but I did. My father’s business and all my relatives were in Mexico. We would go so often that I never felt that I missed a chapter in Mexico. I would go to all my cousin’s weddings. Their birthdays. My grandparents birthdays. It was all… but it wasn’t.”

Returning to the states upon finishing his European education, Osio partnered with one of his father’s friends in a series of San Antonio, Texas-based restaurants. It was there he worked his way up to Vice President of Operations. Osio recalls, “I opened four restaurants in San Antonio and then [my partner] thought it was a better opportunity to sell the group as a whole. The fact that I was vice-president of the company and very involved in operations [meant] I had to sign a non-compete clause for a five year period.It was then that he looked at a map and realized how attractive Arizona was to a budding restauranteur.

Arriving in 2010, at the end of the “great recession”, he opened Local Bistro, a northern Scottsdale neighborhood restaurant serving rustic Italian food with seasonal ingredients. He says about moving to forty-eighth state which celebrated its four years from Mexico-owned to statehood, “My parents had a second home here and indirectly, I had been coming to Scottsdale for 15 years. I knew the market. To an extant, instead of just randomly choosing this city where I didn’t have friends, family or know the business cultures, I felt this was the safest. It also helped that I loved the city. It’s not as competitive as New York or Chicago or Miami. And for me, venturing off for the first time, it had the feel of a large city but the support and feel of a small town.”

SumoMaya, Osio’s latest venture which opened in mid-2014, is indicative of Osio’s culturally aware and international upbringing. (Soon he will be opening another outpost of the popular eatery in Houston, Texas.) He loves to discuss Mexico and it’s melting pot existance much like the United States.

An inside look of SumoMaya (Photo Credit: Grace Stufkosky.)

“My parents migrated to Mexico City to open one of their manufacturing plants. Then they got into education owning several private schools.” He recalls, “It was a very popular time in the fifties when a lot of Spanish and Lebanese moved to the country for more opportunities. If you look at Mexico City now, there is a huge Lebanese community as well as Spanish, Italian and Argentinian. There are distinct ethnic neighborhoods – just like in the US.

In 2016, Osio has new plans to expand his empire to Mexican cuisine. Osio says, “I’m very excited about this concept. I feel I have a moral obligation to show what true Mexican food is. In this city, there is some great Mexican food but I feel we lack some authenticity, especially with the size of the area. In my opinion there could be a higher sophistication and more authentic experience.” The unnamed project is to be located in the mixed use space called The Colony in mid-town Phoenix, at the growing commercial area of 7^th and Missouri.

“I love living in Arizona and being an American,” comments Osio. “But when people ask me where I’m from. I say I’m from Mexico. I’m proud of it. Extremely proud of it.”

SumoMaya

6560 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale, 85253

(480) 397 – 9620

www.sumomaya.com