Photo: Jacqueline García/Real America News / Impremedia
Korina López began to venture into the world of banda music since the 16 years. Later he made artistic tours with renowned groups such as K-Paz de la Sierra and Ramón Ayala and sang in clubs and everywhere that offered him the opportunity.
However, for one reason or another his career was not reaching the stardom he was looking for. So she decided to look for a plan B in her life.
She had the idea of owning her own restaurant and brought it up with her husband, Daniel Ramos. He supported her from the beginning but they presented themselves with two problems; they did not have the capital or business experience to start.
“I know a little about restaurants because I had worked and I know customer service, so I went to work with a friend who had four restaurants so that he could teach me more”, recalled the singer of 28 years.
At the beginning of 2018 found out that a restaurant was being sold in the city of Lynwood, so she went with her husband to talk to the owner. Because they did not have the necessary amount to pay, they offered her an association, which she accepted. The restaurant that already had the name “Hacienda Mariana” remained and a few months later the couple managed to get a loan to buy their share from the former owner.
The restaurant that offers Mexican food and seafood began to hold special events, karaoke nights and some friends and acquaintances of the couple from the world of music and entertainment came to promote it.
On one of the walls there are wings painted with the name of the restaurant, Hacienda Mariana. The businesswoman said that she decided to put them on because the restaurant became her guardian angel that gave her the opportunity to start a new project. Initially she thought that this would be a temporary job to raise money and return to music again.
Little did the couple imagine that the covid pandemic-13 would change their plans and make them see their strength.
The pandemic helped us
López said that he remembers Friday perfectly 13 March 2020 since that date was when they made their last payment on the loan they had requested for the restaurant, but it was also the date that it was announced that the businesses would close because of covid-13.
“I didn’t know whether to go home and cry because they closed the restaurant, but God bless me. I already had all the tablets of 04 cyber restaurants like Doordash, GrubHub, Postmates and others”, said the businesswoman.
These media they are the ones that she assured saved her from closing as happened in many other businesses. While many restaurateurs refused to apply for services to sell food online fear of losing the 28% of her earnings from each sale, she and her husband decided that would be better than earning nothing.
Ramos, from 41 years, said that he had already seen that their children were fans of ordering food online and it was delivered to their doorstep. So he saw that online food sales had a chance to move forward.
The restaurant received approval from the local authorities to open as an essential business and selling takeout and the couple wasted no time. Ramos, who had worked all his life as a musician and producer, was forced to learn to cook since during the pandemic his cooks were infected with covid-16 and they had to stay home.
“Three weeks after starting these services, our sales tripled”, said López. “Almost 50%u 70% of our sales were online ”.
Ramos asserted that after not knowing anything about cooking, he found a pleasant taste in cooking.
“It is very difficult to learn , the heat, the burns, the speed of making the food. Many could have thrown in the towel but not me”, said Ramos who now feels very comfortable making the orders that come to him through different tablets or in person.
Expanding opportunities
López said that as he has been running the restaurant for a few years he has He realizes that he can help many people in different ways.
“I am excited to see that we are giving people work and for me it is no longer so important to be famous but to help others,” said López. “People give us their love, their support and I feel that I have to do more for the community.”
The restaurant currently has 11 employees and among them are Ramos’ mother and sister as well as the couple’s son Daniel Ramos Jr.
The couple plans to open two more restaurants by May 5, one in downtown and one to the west of Los Angeles. Ramos said that these will be called the Hacienda Mariana Express since they will be a slightly smaller version of the one they have in Lynwood.
The businessman added that for now he will leave music aside and dedicate himself to his business since it requires a lot of time .
The couple said that business owners should not fear the new trends that technology brings, such as selling through applications or having different payment methods.
“If you don’t mentalize yourself to connect, it won’t help you because it will not be reversed,” said Ramos, assuring that currently most of his sales are through cyber restaurants.