Lorenia Saldivar: Cooking up Business!

Lorenia Saldivar immigrated to the United States with very little. Today, she runs her own Mexican restaurant in Escondido, where people from all over, even Los Angeles and other parts of Southern California, come to taste her cooking. 
Saldivar was born in Queretaro, but grew up in Guadalajara, where she studied during her childhood and college years. 
During her time as a major of business administration, she received a call from her father, who lived in the United States. He told her that she had the opportunity to file her paperwork to migrate to the United States. 
“My parents were in Escondido, and I came to live with them,” Saldivar shared. “I met who the man is now my husband and business partner here.” 
“My husband and I had a lot of the same ideas, we wanted to save money to build up a business in our home country,” Saldivar continued. 
To save money, Saldivar started working at different companies in Carlsbad, including one that makes golf equipment. She didn’t speak any English, so manufacturing companies where the only places where she could work and earn a decent salary. Her husband, Juan Carlos, worked as a butcher for over 20 years. 
“We got married, and had our first baby. Then, after saving some money, we decided to move to Tepic, Nayarit, where my husband is from. We opened our first business there,” she said. “Due to the hardships in Mexico at that time, we had a lot of difficulties. All of our savings were gone. We didn’t have good results with the business and we lost everything.” 
With their first son, without money, and without a business, the couple returned disappointed to the United States. 
“Nobody could believe we lost it all, and that we returned to the United States without anything. We left the United States to start a business, and we came back without a thing,” she said. “We came back to the United States with a lot of dreams, but at the same time we were disappointed. We didn’t have a car, and a place to sleep.” 
Upon her return, Saldivar started selling perfumes and nutrition products. Her husband couldn’t find a job as a butcher so he became a day laborer to be able to support his family. 
The couple eventually landed regular jobs. Both of them started working as employees at catering events. That is when they got the idea to start another family business, this time in the United States. 
After getting receiving their tax return, the couple was able to open up El Paisa Mex, their very own restaurant, located on 250 Woodward Avenue in Escondido. 
“It took us six months to be able to open our restaurant. We always had the support of our families, there was a time when we shared our home to be able to pay our rent,” she said. “There was another time when we almost gave up because my husband underwent surgery.” 
“We were exhausted, but we decided to continue until we were able to open up our restaurant.” 
On Christmas day, the restaurant will have been open for six months. The business now has a regular clientele, as well as new customers every day. 
El Paisa Mex’s menu includes breakfast platters like chilaquiles, chorizo with eggs, burritos, tortas, soups like menudo and pozole, tamales, tostadas, tacos, mulitas, and birria. The tortillas, made by hand using pure nixtamal dough, are a favorite of diners. 
The restaurant’s name has a somewhat unique origin. Saldivar’s husband calls all of his compatriots “paisa,” which is short for “paisano” or countryman. This singularity, made all of his friends and family relatives to call him by the nickname of “el paisa,” which became the name of the restaurant. 
Consumers at El Paisa Mex do not just only enjoy homestyle Mexican cuisine, but can almost feel like they are actually in Mexico through the decorations, music, and visuals at the restaurant. 
“I wanted to display a monitor with images of the most beautiful places in Mexico. When families come to eat, the children become interested on the images, and ask their parents about the places they see,” Saldivar says. “The parents always think the images are from Europe or other countries before they realize the images are from Mexico. The whole family is usually surprised when they learn the images are of Mexico, and the children always get excited and ask to be taken to Mexico.” 
“We also have traditional Mexican music along the images they see on our television,” she says. “Our customers even take pictures of the images we show.” 
Besides the restaurant, Saldivar and her husband run a catering service. The couple has served groups of up to 350 people throughout the region. 
“We are on the process of growing. Our clientele is happy, they come and come again; that’s what is important”, Saldivar states. “We haven’t had the opportunity to buy publicity for our restaurant, we not even have a telephone installed or a business website, but we want to continue to grow and sustain this business,” she shared. “We want that more people to know about culture through our food.” 
“We even want to open up another restaurant in the future to be able to create more jobs.”