YOU CAN’T SPELL SUCCESS WITHOUT “J-U-A-N”/ HOW AN ENTERPRISING BUSINESSMAN HAS HUMBLE FORMULA FOR BUSINESS AND GOOD LIFE ENTERING 21ST YEAR IN HOPE by Scott Jester

By Mark Keith, 01/3/22 3:40 AM

Many readers remember the great ice storm of that kicked off the year 2000. Those who feared that Y2K would live up to the predictions of doom were probably not thinking that Mother Nature would have her say first. It was quite a harsh welcome to the new year.

Juan Rivera and his family were about to open their first Mexican restaurant in Hope. Juan had renovated a former gasoline station that doubled as a convenience store and bait shop into a small but functional facility with a handful of tables.

Soon, very soon, a town that had grown up with only one, maybe two, Mexican restaurants, had another. Those who remember El Matador, will always fondly recall the wonderful chips, salsa, queso and fun had inside those walls, but its time had come and gone. The all-too-familiar trip to Texarkana for those spicy entrees could now be found again on Hervey Street in Hope.

What most didn’t know yet about Juan Rivera is he had a formula. It may have been even an unconscious formula. It wasn’t a formal formula. It wasn’t an informal formula. It was a formula forged from a family formula.

That family, beginning with his parents, gently instilled the importance of teamwork and always relying on a family support network. Plus, there was a little “formula” of tried-and-true spices that would come into play later in this New Year’s success story.

Juan’s story begins as a 1969 newborn in Chihuahua, Mexico with parents who operated a butcher shop. He was the oldest and only boy of a group four children. He grew up helping his father in the butcher shop, sometimes handling and trimming beef.

“I still have the scars for it,” he says while displaying well-worked hands in a recent interview. “I don’t know what an eight-year-old was doing with a knife at that time. I was just helping, but I was probably mostly in the way,” he remembers.

“My dad was a very hard-working man” Juan continued. “He would come to the U.S. and work the harvests from California and then go back. He would come in and save money and so that’s how we started. He would say ‘you will have a better future in America’.

“Some people would say to my dad, ‘you have your home and a successful business here (in Mexico), why are you leaving’? He’d answer, ‘I’m not doing it for me. I’m doing it for my kids.”

And, so the family formula was cast.

In fact, it was his mom and dad who served as the first cooks in that very first converted gas station.”

“We opened right after the ice storm, the first week of that year” Juan recounts like it was yesterday. “It was a pretty rough start, but people started finding out and coming in right away. Within three months, we had a pretty steady business.”

But Juan and his family had some background in the restaurant business before arriving in Hope.

Readers, you might want to make sure to be sitting for this little, maybe never-known fact about Juan.

“At one point, it was my dad, my three brothers-in-law, three sisters and my wife, and we all worked for a Chinese man in Hot Springs called “Mr. Lou” in his Chinese restaurant” Juan says with a chuckle. “It was located in the building where Fisherman’s Wharf is located now,” he says smiling.

While we are discussing Hot Springs, did you know that the popular Spa Mexican eatery Jose’s is run by Juan’s brother-in-law?

“They (Jose and wife) stayed working for Mr. Lou, and ran the restaurant for him,” Juan continued. “So, at one point, we owned both a Chinese and a Mexican restaurant there and Jose was running both.

Is there anything else more wonderfully diametrically opposed? All family. All the time.

“At some point, a Chinese couple came looking to buy a restaurant, my brother sold it to them and that allowed him to open a second “Jose’s” location.

After operating a small neighborhood restaurant “Casa Chiquita” in Hot Springs, Juan got word of his future business opportunity in Hope.

“So, I went and looked at the building,” Juan recalls. “It still had the awning outside from when it was a gas station. So, we were able to save a little money and make improvements as we went along.”

Business began picking up and Juan needed space. Little did he know that space would become a premium that would threaten his future. Luckily the Catfish King located next door became available, and the rest is history.

The first days (at the first location) were about seeing what response we could get from the public,” Juan states.

“Mark Keith asked me at my first opening about what I thought about it all and I knew about Hope’s Watermelon Festival, so I said, “I want to thank the people for coming and I just hope I can be here for the next Watermelon Festival.”

Juan, a man unknowingly stating his “formula” for hoping to be here simply one year. He now enters year 21. In order to get to year 21, Juan, again, relies on family.

“My youngest child was only two when we moved here,” he reflects. “She graduated from Hope High School and went to the University of Arkansas, played in the band, took a year off and is now a doctor in residency,” says the proud poppa. “Ever since I could remember, she wanted to be a doctor.

“My son is 23 now and graduated from Fayetteville in Business. He currently is in California selling solar energy.

“But no matter what they do, every time they come home, they go to work,” he says with a knowing smile.

“They hang around here and don’t think anything of it. If they see I have to be in the back and they are up front, they know what to do. They see a table that needs a little more attention, they go out and see what they can do to help.”

The formula now is instilled in Juan’s children. Not with threats. Not through embarrassment. But, through years of loving example. The family formula is now second nature to his kids. Serving others.

Not to forget Juan’s third budding child, now taking classes to attend dental school. One can easily predict a promising future for this one too.

They say, “behind every good man is a great woman” and that can be said of Juan’s terrific wife “Lulu”.

Easily identifiable at the restaurant, wearing an unassuming elegance and a beautiful smile always at the ready. She knows and laughs with many of the regulars, sharing and mostly listening to the details about how someone’s kids or grandkids are doing.

In the early years, her own ingredients to this winning formula were sprinkled into the children (and Juan) every single day.

“I have to give her so much credit,” Juan says with an almost emotional hesitation.

“Because when the kids were going to school, she made sure those kids had a full breakfast before they went. I’m not talking cereal and milk. I’m talking eggs, ham, potatoes, milk and juice.

“I think she did that because we were not able to cook them lunch or dinner at home so that was her way of taking care of her kids.

“And so, growing up, we were working a lot, the way we saw our kids, was here. You saw your kids, they stayed and did their homework between lunch and dinner and ‘hang around the restaurant so we can see you’,” Juan recalled.

The winning formula between Juan and Lulu began with a wedding 30-years ago this May.

“After we opened this one in Hope, me and my sister started one in Texarkana and I said to them that if one day this takes off and goes well, then just buy me out as you go. Because they work as hard or harder than we do.

“My cousin runs the Atlanta, Texas location. He started there with me in the kitchen and he’s pretty much having his own location. We have another location in New Boston that my cousin and his son go back and forth between locations. We are still working as family”

Now for Juan’s mother and (one of) her primary contributions to this whole success story.

“To this day, my mom still bags most of the spices and seasons that go in our food from the two locations in Hot Springs, to Atlanta, Texarkana, New Boston and Hope. We ship them to the locations from here. That’s how we keep the consistency. You (the diner) are not missing anything.”

Momma. The final ingredient to the family formula.

The COVID year was extremely difficult, not only on Juan’s restaurant, but the entire area was forced into hardships. But the area responded in abundance to feed their own hunger for all things gooey, cheesy and spicy, but to support businesses in need.

“COVID was a hard 12 months or so here. Not only for here but all the locations,” Juan reiterated.

“It was someone shutting our doors and saying ‘you can’t open’. But what am I going to do? I’ve got bills to pay.

“Then they said we could open for “to go’s” and we noticed we needed to be able to provide consistent food and service. The community was right behind you,” Juan reiterated. “They wanted to order “to go” to make sure you stayed in business. It was a year you realized how appreciative of your customers and what they were doing for you!

“At this point, I’m just glad the sign still says we are “Open” and so thankful for that.

So, since being in successful business locally for 21 years, what wakes Juan Rivera up and gets him stirred these days?

“The first thing I think of when I wake up and what gets me up,” Juan reflects. “It’s my kids. My wife. “And I like to get up and go to work and think I what I have been able to help provide them. And I’m thankful every day for that. And today’s day? I still wake up and think, “it’s gonna be a great day”.

We readers and human racers today are much determined by where we came. Our roots. Our parents.

The principles that were subtly embedded in Juan first by the skilled hands and mind of his father then combined with the determination and dedication of his mother have rewarded many around them. We in Hope and the surrounding area are a better community because of them and their family. Look for them both someday at Amigo Juan’s. It was their start of a great success story.