Mexican chef and entrepreneur hopes his new restaurant will be his most lucrative project yet

When Juan Jose Sanjuan Ⅲ first drove past the 3000 square foot lot on 1111 Olympic Blvd. in the heart of Downtown LA, he immediately saw potential where others just saw a vacancy. 

The veteran chef knew that his four decades of experience in the kitchen, along with help from the business resource nonprofit New Economics for Women, could transform the area into a hotspot for food and Mexican culture. 

As the number of the address is typically associated with an omen of good fortune, Sanjuan knew he could use all the luck he could get, so he incorporated the number into the name of his restaurant, and after a year of permitting and applying for Small Business Administration (SBA) loans, 1111 La Experiencia is expected to open in June of 2024.

“It's been a difficult year. We've been battling with permits, changing the COO and working to secure our SBA loan,” Sanjuan said. “New Economics for Women’s resource center has been amazing to us. Anything that I need, I call them, and immediately they help us. It’s more than a resource center; it's a together center where they stick by your side. They have really kept my dream alive.”

That dream has been the same since Sanjuan first put on an apron and stepped into the kitchen of his family’s Huntington Park restaurant Gloria’s at the age of 10— to make an impact in the community through the food he serves. Today, at 52 years old, the chef has experienced just about every up and down the restaurant industry has to offer. From making friends with celebrity chef Aarón Sanchez and creating a nonprofit to closing down three of his previous eateries—something he hopes to bounce back from with 1111 La Experiencia.

Sanjuan’s Call to service 

On Nov. 18, Sanjuan, Sanchez and other chefs hosted an event in the restaurant’s parking lot to raise money for Unidos for Acapulco, a fundraiser in which all proceeds were donated to families affected by Hurricane Otis. The event raised $4,000 and the organizers expect to raise an additional few thousand more through their GoFundMe page. The chefs also plan to fly out and personally donate food boxes to the people of Acapulco in early January. Coming together in times of hardship is a situation where Sanjuan thrives.

In 2020 when the pandemic closed most restaurants in the city, Sanjuan formed Chefs Supporting Chefs, a nonprofit that brought cooks together to provide 20,000 burritos to agricultural workers in Northern California’s Central Valley. 

Previous restaurants, overcoming setbacks and culture

At the age of 21, Sanjuan ran his first restaurant, Gloria’s Pueblito, for a couple years as a spinoff to the family business before a stroke temporarily paralyzed him, forcing him to sell the establishment. After making a full recovery, his second restaurant, a build-your-own ceviche bar and taqueria called Ceviche Gloria’s, was going strong before it was shut down for not having the proper ventilation hood. When his third eatery Pueblito was going well, serving up small-town recipes from Michoacán, Veracruz and other parts of Mexico, the pandemic caused its permanent closure — a setback Sanjuan didn’t think he’d recover from. 

“When the pandemic hit, I lost [Pueblito] and I thought I was done,” Sanjuan said. “I lost all my savings — everything I had. That one hurt the most.”

Hopes are high for Sanjuan’s fourth project. To him the number 1111 holds a deeper meaning than just luck. He sees each individual number as one of the four pillars that support his Mexican culture. As a chef with roots in Mascota, Jalisco he identified those four building blocks as culture, food, spirits, including tequila and raicilla and Mariachi — all of which he has incorporated into the restaurant’s logo. 

When Sanjuan first walked into the New Economics for Women’s Business Source Center in East L.A., he was relieved to see some familiar faces. Through years of working with the community and donating food to numerous nonprofits, he had crossed paths with some of the organization’s leaders and knew he was in good hands. 

When he pitched the idea of filling the Olympic Boulevard lot with a restaurant to the Business Source Center, the nonprofit was on board and not only helped secure a certificate of occupancy and get the ball rolling on the SBA loan, Program Manager Irma Vargas also helped organize a meeting with the mayor to help with permits, according to Sanjuan. 

“We saw it go from conceptual, all the way through funding and [1111 La Experiencia] is expected to open soon,” Vargas said. “We’re really excited for them and they’ve been an incredible group of people who have stuck it out, taken the advice we’ve given and implemented it to help them get to this point.”

New Economics for Women was founded in 1985 by five Latinas who aimed to promote upward mobility for women of color and provide resources to get their business ventures off the ground. Today, the nonprofit not only helps business owners build up their empire; it also helps families secure housing and offers educational services like afterschool programs and courses in STEAM subjects. 

As someone with two entrepreneur parents, Connie Hwang, the nonprofit’s director of fund development, knows the value small businesses add to the economy. 

“I've been in economic development for 20 years, and what I do know is that nothing eradicates poverty like entrepreneurship—giving people the opportunity to create their own business, to spark their own creativity, and to work as much as they want,” said Hwang. 

For business owners like Sanjuan, the services that New Economics for Women provides are the dividing factor between opening their own place or setting their business venture to rest. It’s an organization the chef believes helped carry him across the finish line. 

“[1111 La Experiencia] wouldn’t have been possible without the New Economics for Women's business resource center,” Sanjuan said. “They go above and beyond just putting you in touch with people, they really bring you in and help you.”