Selene Nestor
It’s no secret that people of Hispanic descent make up a large proportion of restaurant owners and staff across the United States, and the challenges they face are not always met by the traditional restaurant associations. Two years ago, Selene Nestor and John Jaramillo, food industry salespeople located in Denver, decided an association could improve the situation, so they founded the Hispanic Restaurant Association (HRA).
“We saw a huge gap in resources for Hispanic restaureteurs,” says Nestor, who is now the COO of the HRA and proprietor of Olta Mexican Whiskey. “The main mission of our organization is to advocate on their behalf.”
Among the group’s programs is the Food and Beverage Language Institute, which helps Spanish-speaking restaurant owners and staff improve their English skills, and, conversely, helps teach Spanish as a second language to English speakers who want to communicate better with the Hispanic restaurant community. The program is operated through the Community College of Denver.
John Jaramillo
The HRA also helps restaurant owners create business plans, deal with licensing problems, and myriad other issues that restaurants typically face but which can be especially challenging for those who do not speak English as their first language and/or otherwise feel excluded from the business mainstream.
“We’ve helped a lot of restaurants that might have been taken advantage of,” Nestor says. “We make calls on their behalf and help them if they get lost in the bureaucracy.”
Shortly after founding the HRA, Nestor and Jaramillo founded an affiliate group, the Hispanic Chefs Association (HCA). Nestor says they did this because they felt the Hispanic restaurant community would respond better to someone who had worked in the restaurant kitchen.
Jaramillo explains that the HCA helps chefs forward their careers: “We provide a leadership model with the framework and architecture to help them move forward in all areas of their lives. We ask them to set up a 'Path of Progression' where they work. There is a great network of support and connections that allow for previously unknown job and career opportunities.”
The president of the HCA is Chef Manny Barella, who most recently helmed the kitchen at Bellota in Denver.
Manny Barella
“Our motto is to educate and elevate,” Barella says. “We want to help the Hispanic chefs in anything they need – legal, professional, job. Anything related to the restaurant.”
Other projects the HCA and HRA have undertaken since their founding include the creation of Hispanic Restaurant Week, which was held in September in Colorado; and Top Hispanic Chef, a competition held in Denver in October. Both projects are continuing this year.
Nestor says the HRA has about 300 restaurant members and the HCA has about 1,000 chef members. An HRA chapter is forming Los Angeles in May, and the organization is planning to add chapters in Chicago and New Mexico in the near future. Visit www.hispanicrestaurantassociation.org for more information or to join.