Community Highlights: Meet Miriam Ramirez of LONZOS BREAD & PERUVIAN EATERY

Today we’d like to introduce you to Miriam Ramirez.

Hi Miriam, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
We have started in the restaurant business first as a bakery,in 2006, Jose my partner is a baker.. We named our bakery Lonzo’s after our only child Alonso. At that time, we were doing small caterings, I was working as a paralegal and then doing federal Income taxes during tax time. Nothing unusual both of us were working, until I was diagnosed with cancer, life changed in a second, uncertainty and fear came with the medical diagnosis, but also a lot of thoughts about our future. One of them was to add the Peruvian Food to our small bakery, we had family helping us and we put together a small menu, We included family recipies, lots of love, and passion to prepare the menu. That process brought a lot of memories of my childhood, my mamita Ana (my mother) cooking for us, for relatives, for friends, the smell of fresh vegetables, and seasonigs. It was until 2016, one special visitor came to our tiny cafe/restaurant Mr Jonathan Gold, the loved food critic, we called him our Godfather, he visited us and he wrote a review in Los Angeles Times. That day the phone rang several times, our new customers, his followers were calling us to make reservations. I still remember that day the whole team hugged each other, yes!yes! we are in the newspaper! Life served to us the unexpected:, one review that helped us to share our roots, our peruvian food.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
For us, because we are a family business, at the beginning it was the financial situation, we had to request a loan and put some money from our savings. Then Covid, one day we had to close our doors, and just do pick ups. We never thought we would be in that situation for that long period of time. Some of our employees did not want to come and work. The community helped us a lot, they ordered, We survived, as a returned of their love and support. We did create a Lonzo’s Covid package that included 1 french baguette, rice, beans, and toilet paper. We called our family “la tribu” the tribe lost three of the members in a period of 7 months in 2017 we were devastated. We could recover and resurface from a financial situation but it was that time we can not even remember how we survived. These days we feel inestability in the product prices, we had ti increase our prices, Political situation doesn’t help either, we are immigrants, we are the core of the food industry, we feel concerned about the effect of the immigration policies. We have learned that being in the restaurant industry it is not easy, sometimes lack of customers, lack of money, lack of effective government policies, but never lack of the desire of the better service to our community.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
We are a restaurant specializing in peruvian food. We also had a small bakery with artisan bread and delicious pastries.
We are known for our unbeatable flavors, our dishes are prepared not only with love and passion but they also have a story and traditions behind them that we bring to the costumers.Our peruvian food is a mixed of other cultures: japanese, chinese, and italian setting a rainbow of flavors. Peruvian food is considered one of the best food in the world and we do have it @ Lonzo’s Restaurant. Our signature dishes the fisherman ceviche (fish with lime juice) and our lomo saltado (beef and fries) are the best in flavor. The experience and atmosphere will take you to Peru.

How do you think about luck?
I would not say if it was a good luck or bad luck. I would say that it is our process, you go up one step but then get distracted and you stay and look around or fall , and you have to start over. It is difficult to start over specially if you are 61 years old, sometimes I consider myself running out of time. But still I have a few projects that I would like to do, Una locura! It is crazy!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lonzosrestaurant.com/
• Instagram: Lonzos_restaurant
• Facebook: Lonzos Restaurant
• Youtube: Lonzos Restaurant
• Yelp: Lonzos Restaurant
• TikTok: Lonzos Restaurant