Two smart cookies hit on an idea

DOUGLAS, ARIZ. — DON'T be surprised if, someday soon, following a meal at a Mexican restaurant, the server brings what looks like a taco-shaped fortune cookie with your check. Crack open the cinnamon-scented wafer and you'll find a slip of paper printed in English on one side and Spanish on the other with a Mexican saying, or dicho. Example: La lengua del mal amigo, mas corta que un cuchillo. (The tongue of a bad friend cuts more than a knife.)

Dichos, as the cookies are called, have been appearing at restaurants -- Mexican and others -- in southern Arizona in a haphazard pattern in which word-of-mouth has far outpaced formal distribution. Raul and Marina Montano, the Douglas, Ariz., couple who came up with the idea after a Chinese meal in March 2007, have been fielding calls for their product since they opened for business just over four months ago.

Orders and inquiries have come from throughout the Southwest and, increasingly, elsewhere in the country. A jazzy binational (Mexico/U.S.) bilingual experimental performance group took some on tour to hand out at shows in Texas, the Pacific Northwest, New York and Canada, to enthusiastic response. And last month, the head of Product Development International, an East Los Angeles-based food brokerage, drove the 600 miles to Douglas to see the Dicho operation firsthand. The parties established an agreement to bring the product to cafes, restaurants and supermarket delis in California, Utah, Nevada and Arizona.

The Montanos, high school sweethearts, have converted rented space a few blocks north of Mexico (coincidentally, a former Chinese restaurant) into a cookie factory. Not far away is Border Mart, Raul's convenience store, taco stand and gas station that fronts Pan American Avenue. It is the first business a traveler sees upon entering the United States from Agua Prieta, Mexico, and the last one to wave goodbye to before heading south from Douglas.

Until recently Raul sat on the Arizona Governor's Council on Small Business and for years was active in the local Chamber of Commerce. He adds to college scholarships won by employees. He's known around town as a go-getter, a smart businessman always looking ahead. Initially trained as a diesel mechanic out of high school, Raul pushed carts for Safeway, then rose to assistant manager at the local Wal-Mart. When Wal-Mart invited him to run stores in Mexico, with increased responsibility and pay, Montano elected to stay in Douglas. He's a hometown kind of guy.