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Casa Pirul, a new Mexican restaurant in LaGrange, is truly a family restaurant.

Second-generation restaurateurs Aldo Ramirez and Juan Pablo Sanchez started Casa Pirul, which held its grand opening on Thursday. Ramirez and Sanchez are cousins and co-owners of the new restaurant on West Point Road in LaGrange.

Ramirez’s parents own and operate Juanito’s Mexican Restaurant on Lafayette Parkway and Sanchez’s parents operate another Juanito’s in Bremen, Georgia so the two have plenty of experience with good Mexican food.

“We’ve been in the restaurant business since we could walk,” Ramirez said. “We would play around in Juanito’s as kids.“

The restaurant is nearly a year in the making. Ramirez said they started talks to start the restaurant in October. They signed the lease for the property in January when they began working on the new restaurant.

Ramirez said Casa Pirul specializes in Mexican food and good drinks.

“It’s traditional with a little Tex-Mex,” Sanchez clarified. “We have some [traditional] American food but we throw in a little spice.”

“We do have a few meals from Juanito’s in our menu to pay tribute to them, so everybody knows that we’re a family,” Ramirez said.

The restaurant had its soft opening last week to a slow start.

“We didn’t actually want a big crowd because we wanted to fix things and get ready for the grand opening,” Sanchez said.

Ramirez said the restaurant began to get busy over the weekend though.

“We were wide open,” he said.

Ramirez said the restaurant’s name was inspired by their grandmother, Esther. Casa Pirul translates to tree house in English. Their logo is their grandmother’s house and pirul is a type of tree in Mexico that was at her house.

Sanchez said at Casa Pirul you can expect good service, a friendly family atmosphere with good drinks and good food.

Casa Pirul is located at 2169 West Point Road in LaGrange.