At 28, Juan Sanchez may seem young to be running one of the busiest restaurants in the Maine Mall area, especially considering he spoke no English until he was almost 20, but he’s been working toward that very goal day and night for half his life.

Sanchez came to America from a small Mexican town when he was just 14, joining one of his older brother Ramon in an Ohiorestaurant. He started out at the very bottom, washing dishes, and says he frankly expected to go back home after a few months. One of eight siblings, had just come to make some much needed money, given the relative dearth of opportunities back home.

But Sanchez took to the work, quickly moving up through the ranks, from vegetable cutter to head cook. Five years later, having learned all he could, and eager to learn more, Sanchez, by now a permanent resident, began learning in the front of the house, re-starting back at the bottom, as a bus boy. Learning everything he could to get to the top, leading him to be the manager of what we call El Rodeo

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