Editor’s Note: It’s always exciting for us to read the nominations for our annual Jarritos/el Restaurante Manager of the Year Contest, and this year the pool included many managers of Mexican/Latin restaurants who kept their restaurants thriving through adversity. It was tough to choose the winners, but we think you’ll agree that the following three clearly stand out.
First Place: Jesenia Rivera: Meeting Customers’ Moods
Jesenia Rivera
When Jesenia Rivera greets customers at Taqueria Los Magueyes in Upland, California, she doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all approach. Rather, she assesses the mood of each customer and interacts with them accordingly.
“I feel like I’m good at telling a person’s vibe,” says Rivera, who has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from University of California, Riverside. “If they want to talk about their day, I talk with them. Of if they’re more serious, I try to meet that tone. I try to reflect the mood they have.”
Making that personalized connection with customers is one reason Rivera was chosen as the Jarritos/el Restaurante Manager of the Year for 2021. She also effectively manages her young staff and steps in wherever she is needed.
“What makes Jesenia exceptional is her adaptability to do every task that you expect from working in a restaurant,” wrote Jose Rivera, her father and owner of the two-location restaurant. “She is an ‘all-in-one’ employee. She handles sales, maintains cleanliness, pays bills, deals with vendors, and will even swoop in and cook if we are jam packed.”
Rivera started at the restaurant as a part-time hostess when she was in high school. She started full-time as a cashier about seven years ago, and about five years ago was promoted to manager.
Rivera’s ability to get the most out of her 14 staff members is just as important as her skill at assessing customers’ moods.
“A lot of my cashiers and front-of-house staff are pretty young, early 20s, and they got to school,” Rivera explains. “Since it’s a part-time job for them and they’re in school, I know they have other goals and dreams, so I want to give them some freedom. I say, ‘If you need a day off to do some school thing, tell us and we’ll let you, just return the favor when you can.’ That way they don’t have to call in sick.”
She emphasizes that keeping the staff happy is important to the restaurant’s success: “If your staff is stressed out, that’s what your customers see and they get cranky. You want to create a work environment where everyone can relax and be comfortable. That makes everything flow.”
When COVID hit, another important skill of Rivera’s emerged: Her ability to deal with the endless administrative hassles that accompanied the pandemic. Not only did Rivera research all the safety protocols the restaurants had to follow, but she also took the lead in applying for relief funds.
“That was a very intense time,” she remembers. “Every week there was something new, and I wanted to get everything perfect. I didn’t want us to get into trouble, didn’t want to get shut down.”
Rivera successfully secured a Payroll Protection Program loan for each location of the restaurant, and grant from the local authorities to buy COVID-related supplies.
What does the future hold for Rivera? She says she would like to get a master’s degree in psychology, and then maybe start her own restaurant.
“Since I have all this experience, it would be nice to open my own little spot,” she says. “I would like to take everything I’ve learned and apply it to a small business I could call my own.”
Second Place: Celina Jimenez: Rock Star Manager
Celina Jimenez
Celina Jimenez was already a valuable employee and assistant manager at Joselito’s Mexican Food in Tujunga, California when about six months ago she was asked to make the big jump to general manager. She handled it masterfully.
“What impressed me the most about Celina early on was how well she gets it,” wrote Jose Grijalva, the restaurant’s owner, in the nomination form. “She understands the business in her heart and knows what it takes to keep it successful. Celina can jump in the bar, wash dishes, prep food, plate food, and that does not even begin to mention her skill in the front of house. Customers love Celina and she knows everyone’s names.”
Jimenez, the second place winner in this year’s Manager of the Year Contest, joined Joselito’s as a host about four years ago. She later became a busboy, then assistant manager. At every step of the way she picked up the skills that she uses in her current position.
“When I started I would jump into different positions when they needed me to,” she explains. “And I would learn by watching other people, like the waiters and bartenders. It got to the point where I can make any of our drinks.”
Grijalva ensured that Jimenez had some formal general manager training when he promoted her by enrolling her in some managerial classes. She completed them in record time, he wrote.
Like any good manager, Jimenez’s ability to manage her employees is one of her strong points. Grijalva wrote that she “is strict but knows when to be lenient.”
“I definitely try to make everybody happy, because it’s never fun to have grumpy employees,” she says. “But there’s still a limit of knowing what you can do for them and what isn’t possible. It’s important to have good communications with your staff. And when you step in to help them, don’t just tell them what to do, show them that you’re willing to go the extra mile to help them. Because we’re a team.”
During COVID Jimenez discovered a fun way to show staff that she cares about them: She buys them paletas from the ice cream man, who passes by the restaurant daily. “The extra things like that go a long way with people,” she says.
Grijalva summed up his nomination of Jimenez this way: “Celina is my choice for manager of the year because this is not just a paycheck to her. She cares about the restaurant and wants it to succeed…. She is a rock star.”
Third Place: David Reed: Handling Challenges
David Reed
COVID tested the abilities of countless restaurant managers. For David Reed, general manager of El Toro Mexican Restaurant in La Porte, Texas, the pandemic was simply an opportunity to show what a talented manager he is.
“During COVID David rallied the troops at his location and began brainstorming how we can plan and prepare for what was happening,” wrote John Mayes, El Toro’s vice president of operations, in his nomination of Reed. “He was not about to fail.”
Reed, who is the third place winner in our 2021 Manager’s Contest, quickly realized that to-go food was going to be the lifeblood of the restaurant during the pandemic.
“We had to shift our mindset,” Reed says. “We realized that guests don’t care what it looks like inside the restaurant, but they do care about how accurately their food orders are filled.”
Reed set up packing stations inside the restaurant and established staging areas in the parking lot. He also created a Google Sheet application into which employees could log information about each order.
“When people pulled up we would ask them if they had already placed an order or would like to,” Reed explains. “If their order was not ready, we would direct them to a parking spot and we would fast track their order. If it was ready, we told them to pull up to the drive-thru and we added information about their vehicle type to the Google Sheet. That way as soon as they pulled up the window we knew who it was and handed them their order. We were able to do a tremendous amount of business like that.”
It’s not surprising that Reed was able to move quickly to keep business flowing during COVID. He has worked as a restaurant manager for more than 20 years, including 15 years at various top Olive Garden locations. He briefly worked at El Toro 15 years ago and returned to the company shortly before COVID hit.
Among Reed’s skills is the ability to motivate his team to excellence. He learns what is important to his employees and tries to create schedules that allow employees time for their personal lives. For example, one employee is an Astros fan, and she was scheduled to be working when a playoff game for the team was on TV. He helped her reschedule so she could see the game.
“So she is at home watching the Astros and has positive feelings about that interaction,” Reed says. “And I have some good juju out there for the next time I need somebody to work on a Friday night because we’re short staffed.”
Reed says a key to his success as a manager is an understanding that there’s more to it than just the bottom line.
“It’s important to know that we’re not in the food business – we’re in the relationship business,” he says. “That includes relationships with my managers, my team members, my guests, my vendors. The stronger the relationships I have, the better results I’ll have.”
Mayes says he’s delighted to have Reed on his team: “David is a great leader, speaker, trainer, and mentor. I’m glad that he came back home to be a part of our restaurant family.”
Honorable Mention
Abisai “Jorge” Falfan, Taco Surf, Surfside, California
Alexander Bello, Bello’s Restaurants, Elgin, Illinois
Armando Torres, Las Palmas, Nashville, Tennessee
Brett Woodfall, Qdoba, Springfield, Illinois
Brittany Guzman, Central Coast Tacos, Arroyo Grande, California
Carlos A. Barrera, Valadez, San Antonio, Texas
Carlos M. Tapia, La Garnacha, Herriman, Utah
Carmen Aguiñaga, Birrieria Aguiñaga, Dallas, Texas
Casey Gibbs, Chuys, Southlake,Texas
Christopher Leal, Don Leal’s Restaurant, Robinson, Texas
Gabriel Montalvo, El Toro Barbacoa, Millersville, Pennsylvania
Garreth Dutton, Tocaya Organica, West Hollywood, California
Gustavo Carrillo, Cristinas Mexican, Murphy,Texas
Gustavo Rivera, Rancho Los Magueyes, Upland,California
Jacinto Hernández, Taqueria Los Fallos, Hayward, California
Jenesis Porras, Chipotle, Los Angeles, California
Jessica Herrera, Las Fajitas Bella vista, Bella Vista, Arkansas
Jhonatan Sanchez, El Taco Macho, Painesville, Ohio
John Mayes, El Toro Mexican Restaurant, Baytown, Texas
Jose G Reyes, Manuels Mexican Restaurant, Houston, Texas
Josefina Flores, Gonzalez Tacos, Taylor, Texas
Juana Evangelista, Tacos y Mariscos Sahuayo, Wilmington, California
Larisa Yanicak, Southbound, Charlotte, North Carolina
Loreto Rocha, Rocky’s Taco House, San Antonio, Texas
Lucy Rodríguez, Autentika Mexican Grille, Panama City Beach, Florida
Luis Argote, La Tolteca, Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania
Margarita Gomez, El Mercadito, Westbury, New York
Matthew Leister, El Poquito, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Monica Murguia, El Mexicali Cafe, Indio, California
Nicholas Renteria, Chubasco Tacos, Phoenix, Arizona
Raul Martinez-Olmos, LA VECINDAD Pico de Gallo, Las Vegas, Nevada
Ricky Vital, Patio Mexican Restaurant, West Helena, Arkansas
Roberto José Montalvo, El Ponce, Atlanta, Georgia
Rolando Juarez, 2 Compás Kitchen, Garland, Texas
Ruby Flores, Taqueria Mexico, Killeen,Texas
Stefanie Hieber, Garzón Latinx Street Food, Lake Stevens, Washington
Stephanie De La Rosa, Shrimpy’s Mexican Cajun Fusion, Turlock, California
Sylvia Contreras, Emilias Restaurant, Brownsville, Texas
Yuliana Salazar, Birrieria Aguinaga, Grand Prairie, Texas
Zakaria Bounane, Fiesta Mexico, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania