Paola Murrieta thought carniceria work was forever in her past, only to open a new butcher shop with her husband

Tim Harty, The Business Times

As a middle schooler and a high schooler, Paola Murrieta helped out in her father’s carniceria. And like a lot of preteens and teens, when she thought about a career, the family business was dead last on her list of possibilities.

Murrieta tells the story of turning 15 years old and her father, Gumaro Murrieta, doing “a big quinceañera” for her on the same day that he opened his second carniceria: Carniceria Sonora 2 at 644 North Ave., Unit 3 (the first Carniceria Sonora opened in Clifton in the summer of 2001, Paola said).

“He would always say, ‘Oh, when you’re old enough, you’re gonna inherit this store, because I opened it when you turned 15,’” she said.

Paola said her response was: “No, Dad, you’re crazy.” And she recommended he leave the carniceria to his butcher, Jesus Perez, better known as Chuy, because “he deserves it more. He works harder.”

Paola admitted, “I wanted nothing to do with the business.”

Almost 21 years later, standing at the checkout counter on April 11, the opening day for Western Cuts & Market, 644 North Ave., Unit 3, Paola said with a big smile, “And here I am now, starting from scratch.”

Paola didn’t inherit her father’s business – other carnicerias operated in the space after Gumaro closed Carniceria Sonora 2 – but it became available when Baron Rojo closed in December  2025.

That led Paola and her husband, Omar Ibarra, to discuss the possibility that she once would have deemed impossible: They could open their own carniceria there.

And “could” became “did.”

Paola Murrieta referred back to her dad’s words about her destiny and said with a laugh, “Should have taken him up then, huh?”

Murrieta and Ibarra, with the help of lots of family and friends, renovated the unit, making the space more open with different shelving and brighter with fresh paint. Then, they determined they wanted to try some different things with their carniceria.

They started with the name: Western Cuts & Market, which underneath it on the store’s sign reads: “Mercado y Carniceria.” In Spanish, mercado means market, and carniceria means butcher shop.

“That was Omar,” Paola said. “We just knew that we wanted something very different, like, not your usual carniceria name. … Omar’s like, ‘Well, we’re in the Western Slope, so how about Western Cuts and Market?’”

“I’m like, ‘OK, but when people drive by, Western Cuts and Market, hmmm, that’s not very Latino. We don’t want to forget about our Latino community.”

Adding “Mercado y Carniceria” underneath solved that.

Murrieta and Ibarra are fluent in Spanish and English, and they think being bilingual will bring in more customers.

“We’re like, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to do a carniceria, but one that’s more for everybody?’” Murrieta said. “You know, everybody feels welcome. … You wanna walk in somewhere where you can be greeted in your language, right? So that is something that we’re going for, too.”

Anyone who enters the store will see Murrieta and Ibarra accomplished the look and feel they were going for.

“We want it more open, clean, modern,” Murrieta said. “We just wanted to do a different type of carniceria style. … We’re still trying to decide if we’re going to hang piñatas or not. We don’t want to overwhelm.”

Many food items on the shelves and in the meat cases will be familiar to traditional carniceria patrons.

Murrieta said the store has “about 32 feet” of meat cases. It also will have a station with cooked meats that were prepared off site at the Business Incubator Center’s commercial kitchens.

On opening day, Murrieta and Ibarra were touting the birria and providing samples. Both recommend it for tacos.

The cold meats will include “a lot of American cuts,” such as New York strip and brisket, Murrieta said, adding that is something her dad was skeptical about when she told him.

“He’s like, ‘That’s expensive, you know?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, but we’ll give it a try,’” she said.

The refrigerated cases also will contain cheeses, salsas and guacamole made in house, a small selection of fresh produce, tortillas and a variety of bottled soft drinks.

The store will sell candy, including spicy candy, which Murrieta said is popular with high school students, and Western Cuts & Market hopes to pull in students from its neighbor to the north, Grand Junction High School. For that matter, Colorado Mesa University is nearby.

“We are going to be doing snacks for the high schoolers,” she said. “I’m still trying to decide, maybe like chips with like peanuts and tamarind pieces. And different salsas and also the birria ramen. So we’ll be making the ramen and then we just add a little bit of birria on it.

“We just want to make things that are affordable, fun, that they can eat during their break and stuff. 

We went with a lot of salsas, a lot of tortillas, the stars.”

Murrieta said she wants to hear from customers about other items they’d like to see sold at Western Cuts & Market, so in time it can evolve into a one-stop shop for many patrons.

The store will be open seven days a week, and the hours remain to be determined, but Murietta thinks something like 9 a.m. to 7 or 8 p.m. makes sense.

Needed a stronger visual cue

Western Cuts & Market opened with a soft opening April 11, and as people walked past the store to go next door to Kulina Lani Organic Sourdough, co-owner Paola Murrieta hoped people also would stop at her store.

But that wasn’t happening. Not at first.

“You know,” she said, “we didn’t open the door for the first hour, and I was like, ‘You know what? Maybe we should crack the door open.’”

Did that help?

“Yes,” she said. “A lot.”

Familiar face behind the meat counter

Western Cuts & Market’s butcher, Jesus Perez, is an old hand at local carnicerias, and Perez worked for Murrieta’s dad when he owned a few in the Grand Valley.

“Our butcher is really good,” Murrieta said. “He’s our golden star.”

Perez is known to Murrieta and her family as Chuy, and she was thrilled to bring him on board at Western Cuts & Market.

“When this came up, I was like, ‘Chuy, you gotta come work with us,’” Murrieta said. “He’s like, ‘Of course.’ … He knows a lot about meats, a lot about cuts.”

Got by with a little help from their friends

Murrieta said the renovation of 644 North Ave., Unit 3, went pretty quickly, but don’t confuse that with easy. She said she and her husband, Omar Ibarra, worked a lot of long hours, and they got a lot of help, which expedited the completion and saved them significant financial expense.

“It’s been nice to have all the help from friends and stuff, because there’s no other way we would have been able to do this within our budget,” Murrieta said. “Everybody walks in, they’re like, ‘It looks so nice. You must have spent a lot.’ Yeah, we did, but it would have been a lot more if we didn’t have a whole lot of friends willing to help out.”

Law-enforcement friendly for good reason

Ibarra’s full-time job is as a Colorado State Patrol trooper, but he’ll be around the new store plenty.

Like his wife, he has experience working in a family business, having done so in the coffee and crepe shops his family owns in Arizona.

“He was a barista, so that’s why he’s into coffee, and he can do all that stuff,” Murrieta said.

In addition to Ibarra working in law enforcement, Murrieta has a college degree in criminal justice, and Western Cuts & Market will give 10 percent discounts to law enforcement, first responders, active military and military veterans.