New Signs Glow At Mercedes Tire Shops
Linda Cermeno’s two tire shops sit like bookends on the east and west ends of 2nd Street in Mercedes.
Joe & Linda Tire Shop #1 and #2 are sporting new roadside signs these days that are courtesy of the Signage Improvement Program provided by the Mercedes Economic Development Corporation. Cermeno’s late husband, Joe, started his first tire shop in Mercedes in 1979. The new signs look sharp with blue letters, a white background, and four tires neatly stacked and arranged.
“I always wanted a new sign,” Cermeno said. “I just kept looking at it after they put it up. And at night, when it turns on, it looks so bright and new.”
It’s the kind of improvements the EDC was seeking in helping small businesses when it launched the Signage Improvement Program. Over the first two years of the program, including 2025, it is projected that 29 small businesses in Mercedes will participate in the program as the EDC provides nearly $200,000 in assistance. Those numbers were recently provided by City Commissioner Ruben Saldana in his summary of a state of the city speech given by Mayor Oscar Montoya.
Cermeno has already seen how the investment in better signage has improved her business.
“We’re getting more calls,” she said, noting that the new signs display the phone numbers of her two shops. “We’ve seen steady improvement (in business).”
Finding A Home
Cermeno had an entrepreneurial background in her native Honduras when she arrived in the United States in the early 2000s.
She was looking for a fresh start, personally, and in applying her small business background to American life. Cermeno describes her immigrant story as one where she was looking for new challenges and wanting to experience a country she had wondered about throughout her life.
“I didn’t come here for a better life,” Cermeno said. “I had a good one. I enjoyed being in business and I wanted to see what I could do here.”
Cermeno settled in the Rio Grande Valley and eventually found Mercedes to be a welcoming community that she could call home. She said her agenda was straightforward. Work hard and bring her life experiences to the opportunities at hand in the United States.
Grateful For Opportunities
Cermeno met her future husband in the early 2000s in becoming familiar with his local businesses.
Joe’s tire shop had longevity on its side as an established business in town. There were, however, some title and debt issues to navigate. Married in 2008, Cermeno would help her husband get through those issues as they now shared a business to operate. Appreciating his wife’s business acumen, Joe would eventually put the business under her name, telling Cermeno, “you’ve earned it.”
She wears a gold tire pendant that’s attached to a long necklace. It has the name of her late husband’s original tire shop business name and the year he opened it. Cermeno has continued to make the business a family affair as her brother oversees daily operations at one of the tire shops while a sister helps out at the other business. The two tire shops do a good business that includes servicing vehicles from the local school district, police department, as well as other city vehicles.
The tire shops have a loyal customer base, with Jose Leal commenting on a Google review, “best in town, affordable prices and trusted for years.”
Cermeno enjoys bantering with customers and the pace of local life in looking out from big shop windows toward Business 83/2nd Street as vehicles travel up-and-down a busy highway. There are now two roadside signs promoting her shops as Cermeno no longer has to settle for fading paint signs on the exterior walls of Joe & Linda’s tires.
“I feel very happy,” she said. “This country has given me many opportunities.”
Contact the Mercedes EDC at 956-565-2230 for more information about the signage improvement program.
