There are at least two important lessons in the entrepreneurial success story of Julio Garcia. One is pretty obvious, and another might be easily missed.
Garcia, the co-founder of Ambriza Social Mexican Kitchen, grew up in Mexico and was 19 when his father sent him to the United States to help his brother who was living here.
With all his belongings packed in a black, plastic bag, Garcie moved to Houston. He spoke no English and figured he had two options for earning a living: washing dishes or cutting grass. So he found a job as a dishwasher in a restaurant.
Garcia quickly set his sights on becoming a busboy so he could spend time around customers and immerse himself more in the language. And once he accomplished that goal, he worked his way toward becoming a server.
“I admired the servers,” he said in a 2024 speech at a hospitality conference. “This staff, they were so cool. The way they interacted with the guests. The way they spoke the language and interacted with each other. It seemed like they enjoyed life differently.”
Garcia practiced his English, memorized the menu, and constantly bugged his manager for the promotion. And after two years as a busboy, despite his somewhat broken English, he became a server. The same manager eventually promoted Garcia to server trainer, bartender, bar manager, manager, and general manager.
The next step was to earn a degree in economics and finance, and that helped Garcia land what he thought was his dream job as a multi-unit manager. But now he worked for a leader who didn’t show the same levels of care and support that Garcia had received in the first restaurant where he worked.
“The person who hired me had zero leadership skills,” Garcia recalled. “He was very abusive and very demanding.”
Garcia spent several years working 60-plus hours a week while helping this business owner grow his restaurant chain. Finally, Garcia decided to venture out on his own. But after five unsuccessful years trying to spin up his own business, he was ready to give up.
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In desperation, he said, he surrendered his future to “a greater power,” and two weeks later a restaurateur called and asked Garcia to buy his business. The problem: It was the owner Garcia hated working for – and who he thought hated him. But the owner said he was ready to retire and believed Garcia was the best person to carry on the business.
“All these years I thought he hated me,” Garcia said. “All these years I thought it gave him pleasure to abuse me. But in reality it didn’t. In reality he wasn’t a bad person.”
The man, Garcia realized, just lacked the skills to inspire people.
The owner wanted $500,000 for the business. Garcia’s life savings amounted to just $30,000, so the owner gave him a five-year loan. And Garcia was so successful that he paid it off in six months.
Six years after that, Garcia and his wife opened their own brand, Ambriza Social Mexican Kitchen, “with the intention of empowering our most talented employees and providing them with the same opportunities that I was once given.” They developed a program to train and finance their most talented workers so they could become business owners, as well. And several now own their own franchises.
The obvious lesson: Pay it forward. People helped you, so help other people.
The less obvious lesson: Add more value to what you pay forward than the value you were given.
Garcia didn’t pay it forward in a 1-to-1 fashion. He gave more than he had received. He didn’t want to imitate the bad attributes of his former boss, so he treated people with respect and grace. Furthermore, he give employees what they needed to succeed beyond the roles they were in – a program and a path to ownership.
“I am the embodiment of the American dream,” Garcia said. “But this American Dream doesn’t just happen. It requires visionary leaders. People willing to take chances on people. People willing to make the commitment to bring people up.”
That commitment helps leaders and their businesses flourish and is good for workers, customers, and communities.
“At the end of our lives,” Garcia said, “we shouldn’t be known for the number of businesses that we open. We shouldn’t be known for the brands that we created. We should be known for the people that we helped along the way. We should be known for the industry that fed this country and that continues the American dream moving forward.”
