Corissa Hernandez remembers feeling the strain on her now-shuttered Boyle Heights bar, Xelas, during business closures at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. She felt like people in the local restaurant industry were forgotten.
“Is anyone gonna come and help us?” she remembered asking herself.
Nearly five years later, Hernandez sees echoes of the pandemic’s impact in the latest Los Angeles crisis: a firestorm that has taken the lives of nearly 30 people, destroyed thousands of structures and impacted millions of residents across the region.
Hernandez began hearing of the devastation, of friends who had lost their homes and of businesses that had been ravaged. Memories of what it felt like as a business owner on the brink of losing everything came flooding back.
“Hearing people’s stories, especially in communities like Altadena, where we have [a high] density of Black and Latino homeowners, and the significance of what it means to lose generational wealth, I think it triggered that emotion that we felt back then,” the 44-year-old said. “I felt helpless, and the only thing I could think of was reaching out to our local officials, and just asking, ‘How can I help?’”
Soon she put out a call for donations on social media and received an influx of food, water and masks at Nativo, the Highland Park restaurant she co-owns and where Xelas bar is now operating. Wanting to take the community’s support a step further, she reached out to her network at the Independent Hospitality Coalition (IHC), an advocacy group for L.A. bars that was born out of the pandemic.
Volunteers distribute hot meals to community members in need. Photos courtesy of Corissa Hernandez.
Now, Hernandez and people in her circles are utilizing their self-built network of Latino restaurateurs to provide hot meals to first responders, volunteers, victims of the wildfires and restaurant owners who lost their businesses in the fires.
“We were feeding the people that were kind of forgotten about like the employees working with the evacuees or firefighters that weren’t at the station,” Guerrilla Tacos co-owner Brittney Valles said. “So now we’re kind of in this flow, where it’s like, ‘Hey, I have this nonprofit. They need 20 meals,’ and then we find a restaurant and boom, they got 20 meals.”
Valles, a friend of Hernandez and member of the IHC, said that she and other local restaurants had so many meals they almost didn’t know what to do with them. Hernandez estimates they’ve delivered close to 5,000 hot meals in just one week.
But it’s not easy to support others while trying to keep their own businesses afloat, Hernandez admits, saying that’s part of the challenge.
“How do we continue, in the long run, supporting the[affected] families while at the same time supporting ourselves? The reality is, economically, we’re not structured to be able to sustain this for a long time,” she said.
“The small restaurant and bar community never fully recovered from the pandemic. Those of us still standing are because of our survival skills and our response to crises. I don’t know if it stems from our immigrant spirits of resilience, of figuring it out, of resourcefulness, and the economic environment that we’re all in.”
The entrepreneur says she’s been working with local officials to advocate for small businesses that have been severely impacted by the fires and credits people like former Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo for making connections to further expand their aid efforts.
Valles said a relief fund was recently scrapped together by local business owners in her network to financially support restaurant owners whose eateries had been lost in the fire, including one business that was destroyed by the Palisades fire right before they opened their doors.
“The way we’ve shown up for each other is just such an inspiring feeling,” Hernandez said. “It’s this proud feeling, and it’s this reassurance that we’re gonna be okay. Somehow, someway, we’re all gonna be okay.”
Hernandez took a deep breath. Never seeing such a community-wide response from her friends throughout the industry made her emotional but filled her with hope.
“The way we’ve shown up for each other is just such an inspiring feeling. It’s this proud feeling, and it’s this reassurance that we’re gonna be okay. Somehow, someway, we’re all gonna be okay.”
