El Palmar Mexican Restaurant


El Palmar Mexican Restaurant is a Mexican Restaurant that has been a favorite for Chicagoans since it opened in 2003. For years they have had the joy of serving people who were looking to eat authentic Mexican food but they had to close down their restaurant for in-person during the beginning of the pandemic.

Their business got off to a strong start in 2020 and they projected that they would have one of their best years. But they, unfortunately, had to close down in-person dining when the city of Chicago announced they had to go into lockdown due to the increase of COVID-19 cases.

"From what our data suggest at the start of the year 2020, we were headed to one of our best years in a while but all of that abruptly stopped because Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced that in-person dining would be closed until they could get the virus in check," said Jorge Ramos, who is the owner of the restaurant. 

Because of these new changes they were presented with. They had to improvise by allowing for people to order take out from them but it wasn't enough to make up for their losses.

"We were able to continue to allow take out from our restaurant which did help us to make some money but we still were not able to make up what we lost because we were not allowed to have in-person dining and we lost a lot of money because of that," said cashier Hector Vasquez.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot did announce that small businesses being impacted by the lockdowns would be able to receive financial benefits from the city of Chicago. But the owner and employees feel like they are not getting the same amount of money as other small businesses have been getting.

"When I was talking to other small businesses around us, I noticed that they received more money than we did and I believe that it has something to do with race because most of our ownership and employees identify as Latino and the small businesses that got more money to have ownership and employees that identify as white," Ramos said.

But despite the challenges, the employees at El Palmar Mexican Restaurant are confident that they will be able to survive this pandemic and succeed in the foreseeable future. 



   


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