Restaurant owner spends $2,000 to promote struggling competitors

• Restauranteur Adolfo Melendez, owner of the Tex-Mex eatery El Mezcal, did not take advantage of his competitors’ loss due to the COVID situation.
• He instead promoted them by buying gift cards worth more than $2,000 and had them raffled to his own customers via his Facebook page.
• For Adolfo, small businesses aren’t just for revenue. There are dedicated people behind it, who give their heart and soul to make the business alive.

The business-minded would probably feel in advantage if their business is staying ahead of competition, but this is not the case of Wisconsin restauranteur Adolfo Melendez.

Adolfo, owner of the Tex-Mex eatery El Mezcal, spent $2,000 to support and promote his struggling competitors.

Being in the restaurant industry himself, Adolfo has a firsthand experience on how the coronavirus pandemic has caused a slowdown in the business.

He perfectly knows that a small business is not only for revenue. There are hardworking people behind it, who give their heart, soul, dreams and lives so it can survive — and Adolfo believes in these people because he can relate to their dreams and visions.

As a support, the restaurant owner purchased more than $2,000 in gift cards to other neighborhood eateries and raffled them off to his own customers via Facebook.

Other restauranteurs highly appreciated the selfless gesture. Olympia Family Restaurant owner Pete Ananiadis said, “In these COVID times, it’s very important to eat local, small mom and pop shops,” he told WKOW-27 News. “[Aldofo] understands that.”

For Adolfo, diversity in the food business is necessary, and it’s what gives a community its unique flavor. He thinks that his peers’ success is also his, an affirmation that he’s doing the right thing.

Adolfo wants to encourage his community to be one with his efforts to uphold other restaurants so they can continue to thrive.

“That’s part of what keeps us alive,” he told WKOW. “You can go to Applebee’s, or you can go to Pizza Hut but it ain’t the same like when you go to this little diner or pizza joint… If you help one person and another person helps another, that will help a lot.”

Source: Good News Network