Raul and Janet Aboytes knew they needed help luring customers into their restaurant in the shopping center behind Albertsons off Zia Road.

They tried various types of traditional advertising. They even had "Jalapeño's restaurant" painted on the sides of two trucks and then parked them in the supermarket parking lot, where they were visible from busy St. Francis Drive.

Then they bought a red jalapeño pepper costume. Janet added the restaurant's name to the front of the costume in yellow letters, and Raul sent a worker wearing the costume down to the corner to wave at cars.

And, with Micah Ortega wearing the pepper suit Tuesday morning, breakfast traffic seemed busier.

"This guy, he's the best," Raul Aboytes said between ringing up tortas and breakfast burritos. "He kind of dances and grabs people's attention."

Out on the corner, horns were beeping in short bursts. Ortega was perched on the Zia Road median. He leaned back and aimed his trumpet toward the cloudy sky, then looked back at the street through the red lenses of a pair of pepper-shaped sunglasses. He pointed an oversized white glove at a driver until she cracked, returning his exuberant wave with a flip of her own hand.

"I want to give Santa Fe a hug," said Ortega after he peeled off the foam costume and sat in the restaurant for a glass of water, his curly, sweaty hair sticking to his head. "My goal is to emotionally connect with every person who passes by."

At the age of 35, he's a little sheepish about admitting that he's not yet climbing a defined career ladder. But Ortega believes he's on a roll.

He moved to Santa Fe from Oklahoma this summer to spend time with his father, retired schoolteacher Jim Ortega. The younger Ortega found work for a few hours a day doing a lunchtime street-side marketing gig in front of Joe's Diner on Rodeo Road. Then he learned that Digger, a performer who had stood there for years, was moving to Arizona and needed to hand off the client.

"I was applying for high-end jobs and low-end jobs. I was willing to do anything," he said. "I was seeing that the stores weren't getting very many people. It hurt me. It seemed like everybody was waiting for the people to come to them instead of going out to the people. I wanted to help a business out, but I didn't know how. ... I am kind of just discovering my economic value. That's what this was."

Raul Aboytes deserves credit, no doubt, for serving up Mexican food like what his mother had cooked at a late-night taco stand in Querétaro, Mexico, and for sticking it out in a seldom-traveled back lot for three years when other restaurants there folded after no longer than eight months. But he's convinced the street-corner dancing pepper helps.

"We just had a guy who said he was going to stop at McDonald's, and then he saw the guy and came in here," said Aboytes, who hired Ortega for a month's trial.

A woman who was grabbing a to-go breakfast burrito had the same reaction, as did a girl and her mother on their way to school, and a pair of tourists who sat down for breakfast.

"Eventually, this is how the business goes," Aboytes said. "People, they might see him, and they are probably not going to stop today, but they will stop tomorrow."

John Perea, who has run the Liberty Tax franchise on St. Michael's Drive since 2005, agrees that hiring costumed hawkers is effective.

Each year, starting in January and ending in April, Perea pays three people to dress as Uncle Sam or wear a green gown and crown, an outfit that's supposed to represent Lady Liberty.

"They enjoy doing it. They have fun doing it. And in today's economy, it is very easy to find people to do it. I pay them $10 an hour, plus they get a bonus if they stay the entire tax season," Perea said. "They can sing and dance if they want. We had one guy that would bounce on his unicycle for a couple hours a day. We say, 'Please just have fun, that is all we ask for. Wave at everyone.' "

Although he's not wearing costumes, Jonathan Otero has worked in street-side marketing jobs off and on since he graduated from high school in San Diego in 2003. He moved to New Mexico in 2009 and performed for businesses in Santa Fe until he moved to Albuquerque about a month ago to try to grow a fledgling business he's calling 505 Advertising.

"It's not making a living yet," he said. "But it will."

Some Santa Feans might recognize Otero, 26, who has worked as a Walmart greeter in Santa Fe, because he's been flipping signs on behalf of the Yoberri frozen-yogurt shop at Zafarano and Cerrillos roads for about six months.

"Nobody likes sign-holding anymore," he said. "It's spinning the signs on the street corner and having a good time with it. We are not holding signs, we are creating entertainment for people, to really enthuse them to want to go to these businesses."

Monday afternoon, Ortega wasn't wearing the pepper costume. Instead, he was wearing a black suit and top hat, twirling an umbrella on Rodeo Road, waving at cars on behalf of Joe's Diner. A city bus driver honked three times in a row. Two guys in a plumbing van shot him grins.

"I love the people in Santa Fe," he said. "They have welcomed me with open arms and beautiful smiles. Every time someone honks their horn, that's encouraging. It makes me dance a little more. You feel like you are giving something to society."

Contact Julie Ann Grimm at 986-3017 or jgrimm@sfnewmexican.com.