\n<\/p>\n
Kate and Gustavo Romero are the chef-owners of Oro by Nixta, a Mexican restaurant in Minneapolis that spotlights diverse corn varieties in vibrant seasonal cooking that landed the restaurant on our Best New Restaurants of 2024. They opened up about what they are experiencing as federal immigration enforcement continues to galvanize locals and communities and how they are helping their staff and neighbors.<\/em><\/p>\n This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n The front door is locked and we have the back door locked at all times. People have to wait for us to open the door. There are people of color who work for us who are all trying to do the right thing and go through the right processes, but they can be scared to come to work. We have people that have seen neighbors being snatched. It\u2019s no longer a Democrat versus Republican issue. It\u2019s a human issue.<\/p>\n ICE is just kind of everywhere. When you live in a place where the population is only half a million people\u2014there are 430,000 people in Minneapolis\u2014to have 3,000 federal agents around means they are everywhere.<\/p>\n When we think back to all of the years working in restaurants, there\u2019s not a month or a season or part of the year that was as complicated as this one. What restaurants in the city are going through\u2014nobody has an idea of what\u2019s happening. You might not have employees one day showing up to work. It\u2019s very complicated to run a business right now.<\/p>\n People can still make reservations at the restaurant. There\u2019s been a giant community call-out for ways to support places owned by people of color or women, and we communicate a lot with our restaurant friends, like chef Yia Vang, whose restaurant Vinai is right around the corner. What\u2019s helping is people wanting to go out and support these local businesses. We\u2019re all trying to do whatever we possibly can to help our employees, who are the base of everything we do.<\/p>\n The recent James Beard Award semifinalist nomination for Best Chef: Midwest is bringing in reservations. It\u2019s awesome, but we celebrated for about five minutes. Any of the traction from that means we get to stay open and keep employing our people, and they don\u2019t have to lose shifts because it\u2019s slow. It\u2019s still been busy, and weekends have been really great. Our sales were better than last January, because people have rallied and come in. Regular guests have asked to Venmo us because we\u2019ve been buying groceries for our staff, ordering them Ubers, or driving them home. Minneapolis is just really, really kind.<\/p>\n We are trying to have all the necessary documentation to protect ourselves and our team. We can keep our doors closed. We tell our staff that if they don\u2019t feel comfortable coming to work, then they just don\u2019t come to work. We are not in their position or their situation, so we can\u2019t judge what they say. We just take it and move on with the day.<\/p>\n I (Kate) went to buy a couple of things for an employee with our five-year-old son, and when I got out of the car, a woman told me ICE was right there. Three trucks drove by and our kid was terrified. He asked if we should get back in the car, and I told him, \u201cWe\u2019re fine honey, you\u2019re with me.\u201d He asked \u201cIs Dad going to be okay if he gets stopped?\u201d It\u2019s impossible to respond to a child asking these complicated questions.<\/p>\n We\u2019re lucky that Gustavo has been a naturalized citizen for a few years. Kate has taken on the role of the \u201cgringa of the house.\u201d If she has to go pick up a vulnerable employee who is afraid, she\u2019s doing that, not Gustavo. But she is still afraid.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n