La Palmera - Yuli Mendoza

Yuli Mendoza - Interview Transcript

So we are La Palmera restaurants, family owned and operated. We've been in business for 29 years now. And we originally started out in Everett, then expanded to a second location in Mill Creek, and recently opened South Lake Union in April of 2019. So my parents are the ones that started the business and they operate it with their siblings. And my brother and I have now joined the family business, and so definitely an interesting time to join and, you know, have all this mayhem happening, but it's exciting to have a united family front that does this.

When we opened South Lake Union two of our biggest communities were Amazon, so we have a lot of Amazon people that come in for lunch, and one surprising community we weren't aware of was the UW clinics that are around here. So the nurses, you'll see them walk in with their scrubs for lunch and we're on a first-name basis with an entire team that's just like a mile away from here. So when all this started happening, with COVID-19, we were thinking about, you know, how can we give back in some way. And the first thing that came to our mind was, you know, the way we can give back is by delivering delicious meals, and then after seeing how overworked all the hospital staff were and knowing that one of our biggest community and supporters for this new location that has been in business for less than a year were those hospital staff members, we decided that was the perfect reason and the perfect community to give back to.

So we launched a GoFundMe and we've had $6000 donated by the community, which has been 111 donors. The price for the burrito usually in the store is $13, but all we're asking for on the GoFundMe is $6, which covers the cost of the food and a little bit of the labor, but apart from that La Palmera is putting forth to cover the additional expenses. Some hospitals we've donated to have been Swedish, we've gone to three of four of their campuses, we've gone to Seattle Children's, Evergreen, Providence, Virginia Mason, and Sea Mar as well, and we have decided to continue the GoFundMe through the end of this month and then after that we'll be rolling out an option for people to add to their cart when they're ordering online if they'd like to, you know, buy a meal and gift a meal. So this is an effort that we want to continue through, just like the rest of our existence.

So right now, we've had basically our chefs involved because our kitchen staff is here full-time. But the employees who have been taking the meals are our front of house that is currently with us, so there's 30 of us, but everyone else who's currently laid off and is going to come back, they're really excited about also being part of this. So we want to integrate a way that, you know, we can basically pay our employees to do these drop offs, you know, pay them their shift so that they can go and build a community within the restaurant and with their fellow coworkers while also giving back. And that's the way that La Palmera wants to basically, you know, put forward La Palmera's part and also the community's part that donates for the material to make the food.

My family is Mexican and my parents immigrated from Mexico 40 years ago here to Seattle, and they've always received a lot of help that has propelled them to continue to be successful. Since day one when they arrived and, you know, they were dishwashers and busboys and busgirls at restaurants, their managers and their bosses were always super helpful, helped them get enrolled in schools to learn English, you know, training them, and it's a community they've built up. So they've always received so much help to get to where they are and to basically get out of poverty that they were in in Mexico. So giving back is almost part of our nature, it's not something that we have to, you know, think of doing, it's something my dad has always naturally done and instilled in my brother and I. So that's why giving is super important to us and it's something we'll always continue to do.