Working on gem

It’s an unbeatable formula for business growth:

“We started working and saving and buying and working and saving and buying and working and saving and buying,” said Dilcia Ruiz. “And now we ended up buying the old Moose.”

Quietly over the past three decades, Jorge and Dilcia Ruiz have built Ruiz Enterprises into a multi-faceted business with more than 100 employees working in as many as seven states.

The company’s latest venture is to transform the former Moose Lodge building on Votaw Street on the west side of Portland into a reception hall and mini-convention center.

Strategically located just across Votaw Street from Holiday Inn Express and Buffalo Wings and Rings, it’s expected to compliment those businesses.

“We want to make it nice so people can come and enjoy it,” said Jorge. “We want to do it right.”

When upgrades and renovation are complete, Sapphires — as it will be known — will offer a ballroom, barroom, meeting rooms and kitchen facilities. The name comes from Dilica’s fondness for jewelry.

“I don’t want to be offering meals, but the kitchen will be working,” said Dilcia. The company also plans to secure a liquor license for that location.

If all goes well, it should open sometime in May.

“I don’t like to guarantee,” she said.

All of the company’s different ventures started with Jorge.

“His mind, it’s beautiful,” Dilcia said. “It flies. He is always thinking.”

A poultry technician — a poultry sexer — Jorge came to Jay County 36 years ago through the American Chick Sexers Association to work for what was then Heartland Hatchery.

“I was the first Mexican,” he said. The rest of the crew was Japanese or Korean.

Offered an opportunity to work for Perdue Farms in Maryland, Jorge declined.

“This is home,” he said.

He founded United Chick Sexing in the mid 1990s. Today, the company employs between 50 and 60 chicken sexers working for the poultry industry in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Iowa and Nebraska.

“We have several crews,” Dilcia said.

Connections to the industry led Jorge to launch Ruiz Poultry in 2000, providing work crews for growers with barns in Indiana, Ohio and Illinois. It now employs more than 45.

“In 2004, we met,” said Dilcia. Jorge had acquired a few rental properties in Portland, and Dilcia owned a house that she rented. They joined forces, married and launched Ruiz Rentals in 2006. Today, the company owns 60 rental properties in Portland.

In October 2019, the couple opened Taqueria El Agave Azul in the strip mall at the southeast corner of the intersection of Votaw and Meridian Streets in Portland, offering diners and authentic taste of Mexican and Central American street food. While Jorge is originally from Mexico, Dilcia is originally from Honduras.

When Sapphires opens, five different businesses will be headquartered in the company’s offices on Middle Street. And there’s a good chance that Ruiz Enterprises isn’t done growing yet.

“We both like working a lot,” said Dilcia. “We are a very good team.”