Colorful Latino-inspired mural becomes focal point of downtown Pasco
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Pasco mural program funds artists up to $5,000 to beautify downtown walls.
- Mario DeLeon painted Café con Arte mural honoring Latino and Chicano culture.
- Three murals completed since 2024 as artists partner with local businesses.
For 30 years now, Mario DeLeon has traveled to Pasco from Portland, Ore., to buy piñatas or pick up ingredients for tamales with his family and friends. He described the city as a hub for Mexican commerce.
Last month, he had a new reason to visit.
DeLeon was hired to paint a mural at Café con Arte, a coffee shop at 430 W. Columbia St. in the heart of downtown Pasco. It’s across from the farmers market space at Peanuts Park.
His new mural is the third produced as a result of a city-led initiative that launched last summer. It encourages business owners and artists to collaborate and beautify downtown streets with murals.
DeLeon is a Mexican artist based in Portland where he has a family-owned-and-operated art studio.
He’s painted more than 100 murals throughout the Pacific Northwest, California and Texas. He also makes portraits.
Art with ‘beauty and story’
With a bright yellow and orange background, the mural at Café con Arte spans one side of the front face of the building. Bold colors contrast the black paint and blocky white letters of the business name over the shop’s entrance.
DeLeon’s mural honors Pasco’s Latino and Chicano culture. It includes illustrations of traditional Mexican dresses, flowers and farmworkers in fields. DeLeon blended spray paint and acrylic paint to create the work.
He also painted tonantzin, a sacred Aztec medicine woman, and ancient ruins to represent Mexican indigenous groups.
“Our artwork is so prideful,” DeLeon told the the Tri-City Herald. “It shows a lot of beauty and story.” “To be painting in Pasco and (have) the history of my family visiting the Tri-Cities, it means so much.”
He reflected on the financial challenges of owning a small art studio and said it was meaningful to receive funding from the city.
Tri-Cities Community Connections was a partner for the project and worked to bring DeLeon to Pasco.
Café con Arte owner Saul Martinez said that it’s always been a goal of his to have a mural somewhere on the building. He wanted to grant one artist the freedom to paint without any outside vision and input.
Now that the mural is complete, he said that it fits in with his business’ purpose as a cross-cultural community space where artists, musicians and others can meet and create.
“It’s exactly what I was hoping for — local, cultural exposure. There is so much pride in that.”
“This (program) means having walls for the people of Pasco to say who they are,” Martinez said.
City’s mural program
Through the city initiative, the city’s Arts and Culture Commission will reimburse business owners up to $5,000 if they get murals painted on their buildings.
Last year, artist Cameron Milton finished a mural near 108 N. 4th St. in an alleyway and Joey Armstrong painted a mural near 402 W. Lewis St.
Both of their murals feature trains, highlighting Pasco’s history as a vital railroad hub since the 1880s.
Artist Gabriel Martinez is working on another mural at 114 N. 4th Ave.
This story was originally published September 8, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
