In Latin American countries, nearly every town has a square - a commercial center where people gather to shop, eat, drink and just see each other.

In Orange County, Carrboro Plaza has been that commercial center for years, with Torero's Mexican restaurant, La Panaderia y Posteleria Pahuatlan bakery and what some call the "Latino" Food Lion.

With the opening of new branches of Durham's Latino Community Credit Union and El Centro Hispano (The Hispanic Center), the plaza is also a social center.

At Torero's, kids eat free Monday through Friday and the in-house bar is among the few on the edge of Carrboro, providing a gathering spot for hundreds of Latinos who live in nearby apartment complexes.

"This plaza is really the most important plaza for Carrboro," said Torero's franchisee Gerardo Patiño. "All the Hispanic community comes basically to this one."

The "Latino" Food Lion, as it's called in la comunidad, has an entire aisle dedicated to Hispanic foods, part of a year-old company initiative which includes a dozen varieties of peppers in the produce section, tamales in the freezer and thinner cuts of beef and lamb used in Mexican cooking.

The Carrboro Plaza store was one of five in the Triangle targeted by Lexington-based Food Lion to better serve the immigrant market.

Shelves display bottled horchata, sodas and juices flavored with mango or tamarind and chips made not from potatoes but yuca and plaintains. Dried spices and corn husks for tamales hang in plastic bags on metal hooks. Typical foods have Latin American flair: glass jars of mayonesa, tuna flecked with jalapeno, chili-spiced candy.

On Thursday, 33-year-old Alejandra Rivera drove past the Food Lion at the Willow Creek Shopping Center to buy tostadas at the Carrboro Plaza Food Lion.

"The other is smaller," she said. "They have fewer things."

Twice a week, she comes to Carrboro Plaza to shop at Food Lion and Dollar General.

"We comes to Torero's a lot," she said.

That's good news for Patiño, who said gaining El Centro Hispano at the plaza will bring even more business as it attracts families with children for activities like self-esteem seminars for youth and tutoring for schoolchildren.

Eventually, El Centro plans to offer the same programs it has at its Durham headquarters, including children's soccer and parent support groups.

"That's just really good for families," Patiño said.

El Centro director Pilar Rocha said her agency followed the Latino Community Credit Union to the plaza, returning a favor, as the credit union started in El Centro's offices in downtown Durham, aiming to protect immigrants' money from muggers. That sort of social mission continues to drive both organizations, though LCCU recently grew into its own headquarters.

"We believe that that's the model," said Rocha. "It's really a combined effort."

On Thursday afternoon, Juan Ariza, Luna's co-worker with the Super Clean painting company, munched on a pastry from La Panaderia y Posteleria Pahuatlan. The pair visit two or three times a week.

Sitting in their work van, Ariza rattles off the list of businesses he frequents, all of them serving Anglos as their primary clientele: Food Lion, Torero's Mexican restaurant, Duron Paints and another plaza business as American as it gets.

"Chicken Man," he says, searching for the name in his new language. "No, Wing Man."