El Gallo Gyro Restaurant
Julie Reed
Broadview University

El Gallo Gyro Restaurant Enrique Contreras and Ana Paz came from different backgrounds of restaurants. Enrique has worked every aspect of a restaurant from dishwasher to cook, and Ana she brought her knowledge of running a restaurant from working at McDonalds. They got married and brought their love for food and wanting to share this love and brought it to a small town in Idaho by the name of Kuna. They never let the tyranny of should stop them, as they only had $300.00 in the bank, and never did any kind of investigation as to see if Kuna could handle a Mexican restaurant, or if it was going to see any kind of growth in the future, they just did it on faith. They both went to a brother and borrowed $7000.00 and started El Gallo Giro. When they started, August 1998 they had wooden tables covered in plastic table cloths. Ana stated that they gave themselves a living wage for the first seven years, just enough to pay their mortgage and put food on the table, and support the family the rest went back into the business. They said business was slow at first they would work with the city and school functions, they grew as they city of Kuna grew. They would in the most part keep the kids separate from the business, they did not want the children associated with the business until they were out of school. To them the children’s school was first. Family and business was kept totally separate from each other, it was agreed upon. The employees are trained well and they have managers for every part of the business and the managers meet with both Enrique and Ana at least once a month and if something comes to their attention then they will call a meeting earlier if needed. They allow no kind of conflicts, if they see it starting then they put a stop to it immediately. When ask about the diversification at work, Ana stated that they have mostly Hispanic people but when other nationality work there is no problems everyone is treated likely family. She reiterated that conflict is not allowed. We talked about the wages that her wait-staff is paid as in some restaurants some wait-staff is paid less than minimum wage and the tips is to make up the difference. If her staff works hard they have had w-2’s that have been 50,000 for a year. In their restaurant Positive reinforcement works like this:

If you work hard you make the tips plus wage this pays your bills. The owners see that you value your job and they are willing to move you up in your job if that is what you want and you become a manager. Both Enrique and Ana are more than happy to reward hard work, as well as dedicated employees with positive reinforcement. Do they expect perfectionisom, no they do expect everyone to get along at work, as both of them have done all the jobs that they expect their employee’s to do. They do have their son working for them, before they hired him they informed him that he would have to be able to leave his home-life at home and his work-life at work as they are to separate places and if he could not then they would not let him work for them. He is now one of their bartender’s and servers. About ten years ago they realized that there was another avenue that they could adventure down so they bought a used truck for about $20,000.00 and parked it a couple of blocks from their restaurant so the farms that are muddy, or dirty or the worker that have very little time and cannot come in for a sit down lunch and yet want a hot lunch can get one from their food truck. The food truck only has ten items that it sells, they are items that can be fixed on a grill and no fryer. Ana states they did little to no reinvasion on the truck to get it ready to go. They will celebrate their 10th Anniversary in March. Even though the first three years where slow due to lack of customers, with the persistence of the two of them, this business has grown. They now have taken their slow nights and changed it to show case a buffet table, they feature a buffet Taco Monday lunch, on special holidays, such as Mother’s day they will fix Prime Rib which Ana will put out extra desserts, they also feature a full bar with all types of drinks. With their optimism, dreams, and hard work they are looking at opening a new restaurant just down the road. Ana said it is just a couple of weeks away, boy it was great to see the light in bother their eyes, as she stated, and “we are getting ready to gut this building and paint it.” Kuna is growing with Simplot putting a new business in the outskirts of the town and they both feel this will help their business grow. Both of these people, not only started a business with little to no money, they have no problem helping someone who has absolutely no restaurant experience, help them gain knowledge and experience and continue to help when they call if need be. Enrique stated that someone they knew asked if he would help him start a restaurant business. He had absolutely not experience in running a business. Enrique let him shadow him for six months doing everything from a dishwasher to cooking then he said he started a restaurant and has had it in Boise for 2 years, along with a food truck. He will still contact Enrique if he is not sure of something or if he has a question, so when asked if they mind mentoring no they don’t (just not all the time). I want to talk about my interview with the couple at El Gallo Giro. I felt very welcome and humble. Ana made the appointment at a time she thought the lunch crowd would be dwindling down but it turned out to be a busy day as it turned out to be a Monday that was a holiday that the kids was out so the family was going out for lunch. I was more than willing to wait for them to slow down as they were doing me the favor. I learn so much from them about their business, nothing says you can’t start small and have a family business as long as you work together. You have to understand and expect the same. They feel the same about employees, the new generations mentality is to make money fast and not work for it the older generation’s understand what it means to work and the pride it takes to work and earn a living and work hard. The days that they are their which is most of the time one of them is there from opening to closing, when they are not their they will not let them know they are not going to be there as they do not want them to goof off. Everyone knows what is expected of them who work at El Gallo Giro, Enrique stated that they don’t have to remind them that they are having a bad day the customer reminds him that his wait staff is having a bad day. I felt at the interview I did a very good job. I learned a lot from both of the people I got a chance to interview, when I left the interview I felt very good. She let me know if I wanted to call back please call using her cell phone. They were very receptive to answering all my questions and offered more answers if maybe I didn’t think of a question. Enrique had a heavy accent and was a little hard to understand, Ana was very easy to understand. I very much enjoyed this interview.