Dynasty

April Del Campo charms customers from behind the bar at Slow Ride Roadhouse, a North Lawrence biker bar run by her mother and her uncle. The Del Campo family is Mexican-American royalty in town, and with her dark, wavy hair and curvy figure, April is its reigning princess.

April's mother, Maggie Del Campo, is part-owner of Slow Ride. One customer begs her for a chance at April's hand whenever his Sunday ride takes him by the bar.

"Maggie, when are me and April gonna get married?" he asks time and again, sunglasses propped on his do-rag, a few Coors Lights into an afternoon.

Maggie delicately shoots him down. "I don't know if you want to marry April. She can be mean, hon! She's a very nice girl, but she can be mean."

"Come on, Maggie. Help me out."

"I can't make her do nothing, hon."

Nonfamily employees sometimes resent April, complaining that she receives preferential treatment — she gets the shifts she wants, they say, and nobody punishes her for skimping on cleaning duties. But Maggie says April is treated well simply because she is reliable.

April, meanwhile, says her mother can be harder on her than anyone.

"If I made a big amount of tips one night, I could tell her and she wouldn't say anything," April says. "If another waitress did, though, she'd say, ‘Wow, so and so made a lot of tips tonight.'"

But when April is out of earshot, Maggie often talks of her daughter's successes with amazement. April speaks three languages. She has played soccer, basketball and lacrosse and run cross-country. She teaches Latin dance classes to children. She was a homecoming-queen candidate at Free State High School, a 2005 Miss Kansas USA candidate and the Lawrence St. Patrick's Day Queen. She loves her heritage and travels regularly to Mexico, where the Del Campo family owns several properties. And even though her mother is financially comfortable, April paid her own way through school.

"She's a hard worker," Maggie says.

In addition to bartending at Slow Ride, April waits tables at her grandparents' restaurant, La Tropicana.

Owned and run by Jesse and Severina Del Campo for the past 40 years, La Tropicana occupies an ancient stucco square with red-tile awnings, next to the railroad tracks that run through North Lawrence. Its customers are as reliable as the trains that rattle windows in the historically working-class neighborhood. The original hacienda-style front door is now blocked in favor of a secure side entrance, and iron bars line the arched windows. In years past, North Lawrence has been the wrong side of the river. But folks come from all sides of town to dine with the Del Campos.

April says people appreciate the fact that La Tropicana is authentically family-run.

(Double-click the video above to see a slideshow of the Del Campo family.)

Like most of Jesse and Severina's grandchildren, she was in the back shredding lettuce by age 10, busing tables at 12, serving food at 14. Now 24 and a University of Kansas graduate, she's planning a career outside the family business. But she says she'll never break her bond with La Tropicana's faithful.

"They know your life, and you know them," April says at the start of an evening server shift. Her voice is always raspy, as though she's been chatting with someone all day. "They have come to my graduations. They'll come to my wedding. People like the feeling of togetherness."

La Tropicana thrives, Maggie says, because it belongs to townies — including, she proudly points out, "lawyers, judges, police."

April's aunts and cousins also buzz around the place. Her grandfather Jesse, who immigrated to Lawrence from Mexico City in 1961, is in the back helping prepare for the dinner rush, sharply dressed, as always, in polyester pants and a dress shirt.

On his hands, he wears enormous gold rings, sparkling proof of the American dream.

In this college town, restaurants and bars come and go, but Del Campo businesses flourish.

Jesse and Severina started the empire when they took over La Tropicana in 1965. In the early 1980s, two of their sons opened bars, both of which are now staples of their neighborhoods: Charlie's East Side Grill & Bar, a hole-in-the-wall 3.2 bar, and Los Amigos Saloon (since renamed Club 508), a controversial North Lawrence bar that Jesse Jr. launched down the road from his parents' restaurant. Jesse Jr. also invested in the Yacht Club, an established college hangout that he helped remodel as a sports bar in 2003, and co-owns Slow Ride with Maggie and two non-Del Campo partners.

At 51, Maggie is the eldest of Jesse and Severina's seven children. She and her brother Jesse Jr. spend most of their waking hours at Slow Ride, a vast one-story building with rustic-looking wood siding and a parking lot full of Harleys easily spotted by bikers approaching North Lawrence on Interstate 70.

Jesse Jr., Maggie and their partners conceived the place as a "high-end biker bar" with Harley-orange pool tables and silver ceiling fans evocative of chopper engines. On weekend nights, bands with names like Hot Load take the stage. On Sundays, much of the Del Campo family shows up to watch Chiefs games and eat tacos, the 75-cent special of the day.