Manuel Torres likes to keep a lot on his plate.

He's labored long and hard not only to ensure that his El Serrano Restaurante along Columbia Avenue serves exceptional food, but also to create a sensational setting to go along with the Latin American cuisine.

It's been 15 years since Torres opened the restaurant in a 5,000-square-foot barnlike structure that had been the City Lights nightclub and 8½ years since he jumped into an expansion project that engulfed a neighboring building.

Now, Torres says, the resulting 24,000-square-foot Spanish colonial complex is complete.

For those who have only driven by the large stuccoed building with its red-tiled roof, that may seem like old news. Work on the exterior was finished more than a year ago.

Work on the equally striking interior, however, had been continuing, all of it — from floors, windows and ceilings to tables, chairs and light fixtures — designed by Torres himself, much of it handmade in his own wood shop in his native Lima, Peru.

"I know it's eye-catching," he said, gazing around at the hand-carved mahogany and polished brass fixtures. "I don't still say, 'Wow,' but I can raise my head and feel good when I look at it."

But evoking "wows" from his customers wasn't Torres' sole intention in creating the complex.

Instead, he said he wanted to give people the same sense of peacefulness, beauty and history that he felt when he first saw El Monasterio, a 16th-century seminary in Cuzco, Peru, that's been converted into a luxury hotel and served as the inspiration for El Serrano.

Torres won't discuss how much he's spent on the project, although he does say a couple of his friends have told him he'll never recoup his investment.

But that wasn't the point, he said. The point was to build something that's the same as it would have been 150 to 250 years ago and that may still exist 150 years from now.

"Everyone [else] keeps changing things to make it look new," he said. "I want it to look like it did in the old days."

He said people tell him when they're at El Serrano they feel like they've left Lancaster.

"You walk in here and you walk into the old country, the old Spanish country," he said.

Taco salad to tapas
Then there's the food.

El Serrano started out as a Mexican restaurant but now encompasses three distinct restaurants under one roof, each with its own kitchen.

The menu for El Serrano, which seats 220 on the ground floor, now features numerous Peruvian dishes in addition to the original Mexican fare.

Peruvian cuisine, which has its roots in Inca culture and ingredients native to the Andes, incorporates Spanish, French, Italian and Asian influences.

Just as diverse is the menu for Culturas, the second-floor restaurant overlooking the enclosed courtyard.

Culturas, which is open only in the evening and seats another 100 people, specializes in tapas, individually ordered servings on small plates that are popular in Spain.

By ordering a variety of tapas, people can sample the flavors of a number of cuisines — Peruvian and other Latin American dishes as well as Spanish.

Torres said some devotees of El Serrano seem wary of trying Culturas, fearing it will be more expensive than the original restaurant. It doesn't have to be that way, he said, if people limit the number of dishes they order.

And then there's Clementinas at El Serrano, named after Torres' mother, who still sometimes works at the complex.

Unlike Culturas, which opened just last year, Clementinas has been around for several years but has not been widely advertised.

"It's been our secret," Torres said.

Only open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, Clementinas consists of four small, high-ceilinged private rooms on the second floor, each with its own fireplace and a single table seating either two or four people. It's the complex's gourmet option.

There are also numerous nooks and crannies scattered around the sprawling building, including the chess room, where every tabletop doubles as a chess board.

In Peru, Torres explained, many restaurants feature such tables. After the meal is finished and cleared away, the server pulls off the tablecloth and brings out the chess pieces.

The games are popular and often draw crowds of spectators, Torres said.

"It may take a little time, but eventually I want to do that here," he said.

The most recently completed area consists of a pair of banquet rooms, each with a long table seating up to 20 people with family-style servings for special gatherings.

Factories to fajitas
Torres said he was 19 when he and one of his older brothers came to this country at the invitation of Dave Brill, of Hanover, who had married his sister, Maria.

"When I first came, I worked in factories. I worked two, three jobs," he said. "I always work all the time."

After attending a seminar on how to buy real estate with no money down, he began purchasing houses, fixing them up and renting them, he said.

His first food business was a travel trailer that he turned into a Tex-Mex food stand at the York Fair.

Next, he leased a former Burger King restaurant in west York, opening the first El Serrano there in 1987. Two years later, he moved that restaurant to its current location in east York, where it's still operated by his daughters, Melanie Torres and Bethany Trask.

He said he did all the work on the York restaurant himself, except the heating and air conditioning.

Torres said his father, Jose, had been a builder in Peru, which is what got him started, and that he spent a lot of time in the library reading books to learn more about construction and structural engineering.

He designed all the modifications and additions to Lancaster's El Serrano himself, employing architect and engineer to convert the plans into a form acceptable to the municipal building department.

His attention to detail shows up in a number of innovations, such as the stainless steel, refrigerated garbage room he built to eliminate offensive odors and flies.

Some of the features, such as the basement fitness room, cater to the employees rather than the customers.

"I put stained glass in our kitchen because I think people work better when they have colors," he said.

Torres said he returns to Peru once or twice a year, where he has a woodshop that employs nine people, including three wood carvers who did all the carvings for the restaurant.

Torres has also schooled himself in food preparation, completing the chef's course at The Restaurant School in Philadelphia with an externship at Le Bec-Fin restaurant, and traveling to Europe to learn more about tapas.

He said he has three chefs, including two from Peru, who supervise the kitchens and consult with him in putting together the menus.

"I don't put myself on the schedule," Torres said. "Whenever they need help, I go in. I can do it all. ... Wherever I fit in, I'm the extra."

On to the hacienda
The completion of El Serrano's yearslong expansion just happened to coincide with the current recession.

"To be honest, business has been a little tough," he said, particularly in trying to hold the line on prices in the face of rising food costs.

Still, it's been getting busier now that the expansion is done, he said.

"Believe me, I'm not complaining," Torres said.

He's in the process of hiring more people to help the 108 now on staff with the serving and food preparation.

"The one thing I really, really want to do is make sure this Culturas is going to go," he said.

Torres has also started wine-tasting classes — El Serrano's wine cellar is stocked with 277 different selections, mostly from Spain, Chile and Argentina. And he plans to do more catering.

Nor is he done building.

Torres said he bought a farm five years ago in Hellam Township, York County, and is working to create a hacienda there to serve as a venue for weddings and other large gatherings.

"The opportunity you have in this country — if you take advantage of it in the right way and are honest, you grow," he said.

"I make sure my kids know that."