FULFILLING a
e
Dream
alumni
Flores, Class of 2018, Gears Up to Open New Restaurant
by MARY TOOTHMAN
ERIK FLORES, a 2018 Webber University graduate who majored in marketing, has been busy preparing for the upcoming opening of his new restaurant in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. The restaurant, named Wrap City, will offer a mix of American cuisine and local Honduran flavors. It will sell wraps, bowls, salads, and quesadillas. The doors to Wrap City were set to open to the public in April. “At this moment, we are finishing with the training for our cooks and personnel,” Flores says. He says he is fulfilling his restaurant dream in large part thanks to encouragement from a special mentor at Webber. “Tonya Webb from the Student Union at Webber International University inspired me to start this project. “She is the best teacher I ever had,” Flores says. “She taught me everything I know about the food industry, and she also taught me to always treat everyone with respect.” Webb gave Flores all sorts of practical, food-related knowledge. “She taught me how to make wraps, salads, and how to use the fryer and other equipment,” he says. But perhaps more notably, she instilled important values, Flores says. “She also set an example on how to treat people,” he says. “She treats everyone by who they are, not by where they come from or what they look like. “As an international student, it was not an option to work off-campus, and on-campus jobs were pretty full all the
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time,” he says “But she gave me, and a bunch of other students, an opportunity to work with her.” Finding work is important to international students who seek to meet the requirements for an F1 visa. And Webb, Flores says, was sensitive to that issue and did all she could to help students out. “For her, it did not matter if you were an international, American, freshman
or senior student. She gave everyone an opportunity,” he says. Now, he wants to channel that goodwill at his own business. “That is what I want to do here.” Flores says he will incorporate values he learned from Webb in his new restaurant business. That includes hiring students who most need the opportunity. “All of our personnel — cooks, waiters, cashiers — are undergraduate students that do not have an open schedule to work a full-time job,” he says. “All of them are new to the industry and are willing to work hard. “Just like we were when we worked for Ms. Tonya.”
For (Tonya Webb), it did not matter if you were an international, American, freshman or senior student. She gave everyone an opportunity. That is what I want to do here.
APRIL 2020 | 31
