“Jesus and Jose are back,” said Cazador owner Jesus Rodriguez, who wants everyone to know the restaurant is reopening with fervor on Feb. 12.

After seven months of being out of business, the owners of the Mexican restaurant are opening their doors to once again serve patrons.

The owners of the reopening business are confident they can bring back their customers.

“We have talked to a lot of customers up here. They come here [and they] say ‘Oh we haven’t seen you guys in a while, we really want you to do it,’” Rodriguez said. “Jose remembers those people from 10 years ago. They say ‘If you make it, we’ll come here. They are excited for us.’”

With his large base of patrons, Jose Velarde and Rodriguez believe that places like the new Chipotle and Pancheros “aren’t even competitors.”

“That’s totally different; they don’t have the same kind of food. That one’s totally Americanized, so I would not consider that competition,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez said that after months of trying to sell the property with no bids, he decided it was time to give it another shot.

“We were going to sell it and I really wanted to sell it, and it was my goal at the time; it was for sale for six months and didn’t even have one offer.”

Cazador has been in the Ames area since 1996 with a store by West Hy-Vee and Rodriguez in charge. He said he owned 70 percent of the company, while his partner owned 30 percent.

Eventually, he let his partner take over so he could go to his other store in Ankeny.

In 2004, his partner wasn’t doing very well, and Rodriguez decided to open their current restaurant, located at 3605 Lincoln Way. He again let his partner run it. When the business began to fail, they had to go out of business.

Once the restaurant went under, the owners hesitantly closed shop. Rodriguez cut ties with his partner and found Velarde.

Now that the restaurant is reopening, Velarde and Rodriguez stressed it won’t be like last time.

“I don’t want to let people down, so I want to make it up to them and start over again,” Rodriguez said. “It’ll be the old style, with the original castle [look] … the customer, they’re the priority. It’s not about the money. [My partner], he was about the money. It won’t be like that again. It’s the real Cazador.”

The owners said there won’t be any big menu changes, but everything is homemade and their recipes will taste more like those at the restaurant in Ankeny.

Repairs and inspections have been going as scheduled, said a worker who was inspecting the flame suppressant systems there. Other things they’ve been working to fix include the carpets, as well as repainting the outside and the bathrooms.

Rodriguez has been in the restaurant business for 20 years, with a restaurant in Washington state, Clarinda, Ankeny and now the one in Ames.