Hardship Was One Woman’s Chance

At age 13, life changed for Maria Elena Avila in a way that could have seemed like a hardship to some. She saw it as an opportunity.

The Avila family was struggling and surviving in Huntington Park after leaving Mexico about eight years earlier. But an injury forced her father from his job as a foundry worker. With a $2,000 bank loan co-signed by his uncle, Salvador Avila opened a small restaurant next to a liquor store.

After school each day, Maria Elena Avila worked at her father’s Huntington Park restaurant, serving food, cleaning tables, anything that needed to be done. For her, the American Dream would not be a college education, but a chance to become a successful entrepreneur.

By age 21, she owned her first restaurant, in La Habra, and started a catering business. Her parents have since retired, but Avila and her family now own seven Avila’s El Ranchito restaurants in Orange and Los Angeles counties.

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If there is any single event that symbolizes her success, Avila says it was catering the 1990 dedication ceremonies at the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace in Yorba Linda.

“That really made me proud. . . . I was representing myself, my family and the Mexican culture to dignitaries from all over the world--people like Margaret Thatcher,” said the 45-year-old Corona del Mar resident.

“I was serving food based on my mom’s recipes but serving it in a presentation with Mexican cultural artifacts,” she added. “It was not just about food.”

Avila last month became the first Latina ever honored as Woman of the Year in Costa Mesa, where she now owns and operates Avila’s El Ranchito and her catering business.

It has been almost a quarter-century since she started her first restaurant, which could have easily been her last. Not long after the business opened, she went through a divorce. She was running the restaurant by herself while raising a young daughter.

“After I got divorced, my dad said, ‘Honey, you’re a woman. You don’t belong in the restaurant business. You can’t run the restaurant on your own. We’ll take care of you and your daughter.’

“But I said, ‘I’ve got a daughter to support and I’m going to make it.’ So I rolled up my sleeves and was determined to be a hard-working woman. I wanted to offer my daughter the best in life that I possibly could.”

So she continued to run the La Habra restaurant on her own for the next decade, inspired by memories of her mother’s hard work to make the family’s first restaurant a success.

“Because I was young and I saw my mom as partner of the business, I had her as a role model,” Avila said. “It made me think that I could be a businesswoman also.”

Avila said her mother remains an inspiration in the way she runs her business as well as in the way she cooks.

“My mom was known to be a great cook--she had all these little secrets. She gave us the recipes that her mom had taught her, that had been handed down through the family,” Avila said.

“Here we are three decades later, and mom is still our spot-checker in the restaurant,” she added. “She’ll come into the kitchen and she’ll say, ‘No, no, in the sauce you used green tomatillos. They weren’t ripe enough.’ ”

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Avila has passed on the determination to succeed to her daughter Lisa, the first member of the family to graduate from college. Lisa Avila is a graduate of Loyola Law School and recently passed the bar exam.

“Just like I watched my mom, here my daughter was watching me,” Avila said. “What an important role model mothers can be to their daughters. She’s now in business law, and it’s a natural for her, because she saw her mom in the business world.”

Avila also encourages local Latino youths to see themselves as capable of the same kind of success her family has enjoyed. As an executive board member of the Hispanic Education Endowment Fund, she is working to raise $1 million to fund scholarships for Latino students in Orange County. The organization has raised $700,000 to date.

“One of my passions is to tell this new generation that we have a lot to be proud of. Our culture is based on family unity, faith in God and the work ethic. I want the kids to know that we all should be very proud of our culture.”

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Profile: Maria Elena Avila

Age: 45

Hometown: Guanajuato, Mexico

Residence: Corona del Mar

Family: Single; one grown daughter

Education: Graduated from Huntington Park High School; eight years’ on-the-job training in family’s restaurant business; studied business management at UC Irvine; United Way leadership training

Background: Opened first restaurant, Avila’s El Ranchito, in La Habra at age 21, 1974-86; moved restaurant to Brea, 1986-91; owner of Avila’s El Ranchito in Costa Mesa since 1992; operated Avila’s El Ranchito Catering since 1974; Avila family owns and operates seven restaurants in Orange and Los Angeles counties

Community service: Affiliated with Catholic Rainbow Outreach Ministries, since 1978; United Way board member, 1990-96; founding member, Orange County Hispanic Education Endowment Fund and current member of executive board; created Avila’s El Ranchito Scholarship Fund at Estancia High School; member, USC Mexican American Alumni Assn.; board member, Coast Community College District Foundation; advisory board member, Hispanic Youth Ministries of Orange County; co-founder, past president and member, Latino Leadership Council, (now the Latino Business Council)

Honor: Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce’s Woman of the Year, first Latina to be so honored

On dynasty building: “My parents worked very hard in their first restaurant, but with a lot of joy. My mom worked 16 hours a day. My dad would get up before dawn to go buy produce downtown, then come back and mop and clean the restaurant. My grandpa was the dishwasher. They all had so much enthusiasm--they were my role models.”

Source: Maria Elena Avila; Researched by RUSS LOAR / For The Times