On the Border, a national Mexican restaurant chain, leads a list of ethnic eateries that have set their sights on Lawrence. It will open next spring near 31st and Iowa streets.

Several other restaurants also have opened or plan to open in Lawrence. Here are the latest offerings:

On the Border

The Dallas-based Mexican food restaurant will locate on the northeast corner of 31st and Iowa streets in the same development that houses Home Depot and Best Buy.

Construction is expected to begin in October on the 6,100-square-foot building, said Louis Adams, a spokesman with On the Border. He said the company hoped to open the restaurant in April.

It will be the fourth location in Kansas for the company. It already has restaurants in Leawood, Overland Park and Wichita. Adams said Lawrence was the type of community the company had in its expansion plans, which call for about 10 new stores a year.

“It obviously is a great university town, but it also has a good residential population, good retail traffic and a lot of offices in the area,” Adams said. “That makes for a good location to have a restaurant.”

The company, which is owned by the same corporation that owns Chili’s Grill & Bar, focuses on serving traditional Mexican entrees, but also has some steak, seafood and ribs on the menu.

“It mainly fits into that burgeoning Tex-Mex category,” Adams said. “Lots of fajitas and lots of margaritas.”

Lisa Nguyen, owner of Jade Garden and Jade Mongolian Barbeque, is adding two more restaurants to her Lawrence offerings. She has opened Jade Indian Grill, 3300 W. 15th St. She plans to open Sushi Station, 1730 W. 23rd St., next week.

Christian Ablah, a leasing agent for the Home Depot/Best Buy development, said On the Border wouldn’t be the last restaurant at the intersection. He said the company was seeking at least one more restaurant to go into one of two buildings that will be built along 31st Street near the entrance to Home Depot.

Jade Indian Grill

Lisa Nguyen, owner of the Jade Garden and Jade Mongolian Barbeque, is looking to tap into the Indian food and Japanese sushi markets with two new Lawrence restaurants.

Jade Indian Grill opened Friday at 3300 W. 15th St. in the former Skeeter’s Bar & Grill location. Sushi Station is expected to open next week at 1730 W. 23rd St. in the former Quinton’s Bar & Deli location.

“It wasn’t like I was out looking for restaurant locations, but these just happened to come along and it seemed like an opportunity,” Nguyen said. “But I didn’t want to put in another Chinese restaurant. I wanted to give the town a little more variety.”

The city already has Indian and sushi restaurants, but Nguyen said there were still geographical areas of the city that were underserved. She said most of the city’s Indian restaurants were downtown.

“I think Lawrence can handle another Indian restaurant,” Nguyen said. “Most of them are quite far away from west Lawrence.”

Nguyen partnered with area architect and India native Raja Kundu to open the restaurant. She said she had known Kundu for years and liked his cooking and that he had long expressed an interest in opening an Indian restaurant.

When a space opened up in the same shopping center that the Jade Garden is in, Nguyen figured that was the opportunity the two had been looking for.

Nguyen said the Jade Indian Grill should be different from other Indian restaurants because the restaurant will feature dishes from Kundu’s eastern India, which are slightly different in spices than many of the recipes from the southern part of India, which are more commonly found in area Indian restaurants.

Sushi Station

The idea for Sushi Station started when Nguyen began eating sushi at Wa, a downtown sushi restaurant. Nguyen said eventually the restaurant’s chef, whom she declined to name, expressed an interest in working for Nguyen.

“We love sushi and he is by far the best in this part of the country,” Nguyen said. “When he decided to come work for us, we got so excited that we had to find a place to put him.”

The former Quinton’s location near 23rd and Iowa streets was available after the sandwich shop and bar decided to focus on its downtown restaurant.

Nguyen said Sushi Station, like the Indian Grill, also should fill a geographical void, since most of the sushi restaurants are downtown or along Sixth Street. Plus, she believes sushi is becoming more popular with Americans.

“It’s healthy and people really seem to like it,” Nguyen said. “Lawrence is the type of town that accepts all different types of cuisine, all different types of food.”

Maya Mexican Food

Frank Cadena III is following in his family’s footsteps by opening a Mexican restaurant, but he’s going against the grain by opening one in a hotel.

Maya Mexican Food, which opened the first of the month, is located in the Ramada Inn, 2222 W. Sixth St.

“I mainly was just looking for any suitable location, whether it was in a hotel or not,” Cadena said. “I just need people to come in and try it one time and they’ll come back.

“But I do have to work against the idea of what we’re serving is hotel food. But the advantage is that we get a lot of hotel guests and it seems to be pretty busy.”

Cadena said the restaurant focuses on serving a variety of “traditional, authentic” Mexican food, although it does include a few American items, including a breakfast menu.

Cadena came to Lawrence from Santa Maria, Calif., where three generations of his family have operated several Mexican restaurants. He came to the area after his brother moved here, and picked Lawrence over Topeka for his restaurant location.

Maya Mexican Food is located in an upstairs portion of the hotel that formerly was the Fiddle Leaf Cafe.