“Today I have my own restaurant and own this building, but I would trade everything I have to sit once again at the table with my brothers and sisters and my parents.”
Marco Antonio Rodríguez fills with joy when he sees customers at his restaurant thanking him for the delicious food they have just enjoyed at Gloria’s Cuisine LA. But things were not always this way. His memories blend with images of the barefoot little boy. He grew up in extreme poverty, wearing little more than a pair of short pants, running through the neighborhood of Dorado Nuevo in Suchiate, Chiapas.
“Getting here is not easy when you come from extreme poverty. I come from a very poor family. My father is Guatemalan, my mother is from Chiapas. There are seven of us siblings, four boys and three girls, and we all went hungry. There was one egg on the table for all of us to share, along with tortillas and chili peppers. That was it. I started working at eight years old, making cement blocks. My father, Mario, did whatever he could to support the household. He worked in the fields and in construction. My mother would just watch us eat, holding her own tortilla in her hand. Those were difficult times, but also very happy ones. What mattered was being together as a family,” says Rodríguez, a Mexican immigrant, entrepreneur, and restaurant owner based in Highland Park, Los Angeles. Originally from Chiapas, Mexico, he immigrated to the United States in 1998 in search of better opportunities.
Marco Antonio grew accustomed to hard work. He attended elementary and middle school, despite the difficulties.
“We ate a bread roll with beans once a week,” he says, with nostalgia and pain, remembering those days as the experiences that eventually led him to build a Mexican restaurant that has become one of Los Angeles’ favorites. And not only that, but he also managed to purchase the building where it is located.
“I was an introverted child. I kept to myself and stayed away from groups. I lived a hard life, but I understood that my parents were giving us everything they could. Today I have my own restaurant and own this building, but I would trade everything I have to sit once again at the table with my brothers and sisters and my parents. My dear mother passed away some time ago in a terrible accident, but I know she has not really left. She is still with me. When I was a child, she would always tell me, ‘My son, I know life is hard, but everything changes. You have the right to dream. Dream big. Nothing is impossible. Just one thing: Always be humble and respect people. Never humiliate anyone,’” Marco recalls proudly.
Young Marco Antonio endured bullying from his classmates. He always responded calmly and peacefully. He knew that being poor, going barefoot, and wearing clothes that were too small made him an easy target for ridicule.
“When you’re poor, a lot of people humiliate you. I particularly remember one time when my mother had no money and asked me to go to my uncles and ask them to give us some milk on credit so we would have something to eat. I went and asked them. They owned land and produced a lot of milk. They coldly told me, knowing we had nothing to eat, ‘We can’t give you anything. We’ve already sold it.’ Imagine how I felt going back home to give my mother that news. Now, when I think about it, I hold no resentment. I remember my mother’s wise words: ‘Life goes around. Be humble. Don’t hold grudges.’”
“My father, Mario, did whatever he could to support the household. He worked in the fields and in construction. My mother would just watch us eat, holding her own tortilla in her hand. Those were difficult times, but also very happy ones. What mattered was being together as a family.”
When he finished middle school, his parents told him they could no longer afford to pay for his education.
“This is as far as we can take you,” they told him.
Marco Antonio already understood the situation and the challenge ahead. He wanted to get ahead in life, become somebody, and above all, buy a house for Gloria, his mother.
“I followed the path my sisters had taken before me. I went to Tijuana and enlisted in the army. I became a soldier. I had to find out what life was like and face it. I couldn’t be afraid. I remember the first things they told us: ‘From now on, the flag is your mother and the country is your father.’ It helped me a lot. It helped me mature. My mother’s words kept playing in my ears, like a constant, permanent sound: ‘Remember, right now you have nothing, but fight for your dreams. Never do to someone else what you wouldn’t want them to do to you.’
“With that intense desire to build my mother a house, I asked some uncles who lived in Los Angeles to help me get there. They did, and that’s how I first arrived in Santa Ana and later in Los Angeles. Everything was different, a whole new world, but very difficult for those of us who arrived.”
Marco Antonio carried not only his mother’s advice with him but also memories of the smells coming from her kitchen, the herbs and aromas that surrounded him. Whenever he passed a food stand and caught those familiar smells, they filled him with nostalgia but also gave him strength.
“The idea of opening a restaurant got into my head, but of course, I couldn’t do it,” he laughs. “I didn’t even have a job.”
“There are moments when it goes up and others when it goes down. Obviously, you have to make sacrifices and adjust your budget, but the one thing I will never compromise on is the quality of our food. I will never negotiate that.”
Finding work was a struggle. It became a serious problem, and he had to rely on his extraordinary ability to survive. His uncle told him he could no longer stay at his house, and Marco Antonio became homeless, sleeping wherever he could find shelter. The grass at MacArthur Park became his bed and refuge.
“I had to hand out business flyers just to eat, doing whatever I could to earn a few dollars. Sometimes I regretted having migrated, but the promise I had made to myself was stronger. I wasn’t going to let myself be defeated. I had to build that house for my mother.
“Once I got my first jobs, I started sending her money. I would tell her, ‘Mommy, go out and eat. Sit down at a restaurant and enjoy this little bit of money.’ Do you know what she did? She slowly began building a modest little house, adding whatever she could afford,” he adds.
He cleaned offices and worked cleaning movie theaters, sometimes finishing in the early hours of the morning with no transportation available. He learned to make do with the little money he earned, until the devastating news arrived: His mother had died.
“I somehow managed to return to Chiapas to say goodbye to her. While I was there, I discovered what my mother had been doing: building her house. My strength multiplied. I returned to Los Angeles with even more determination. I wasn’t going to stop until I finished it and fulfilled the promise I had made to her. I was deeply hurt. I found work painting fabrics, doing whatever I could, but the idea of opening a restaurant kept growing stronger. The smell of herbs was always guiding me,” he recalls.
“One phrase kept echoing in my head: ‘Everyone deserves an opportunity.’ That was what led me to the idea of finally opening a restaurant with the savings I had and the money from my small business.”
Fate eventually rewarded him. He began working at a French restaurant, where his responsibilities gradually increased, from washing dishes to working in the kitchen. He learned everything he could over several years.
“The chef noticed how curious I was and asked me, ‘Do you want to learn?’ Obviously, I said yes. That’s where everything began. The aromas surrounded me, the flavors, the movement of a kitchen. I found inspiration in everything. I started making desserts and selling them with a relative at different businesses.
“One phrase kept echoing in my head: ‘Everyone deserves an opportunity.’ That was what led me to the idea of finally opening a restaurant with the savings I had and the money from my small business.
“One day, I asked the chef for a week off. I wanted to make my idea a reality and visit my father, who was in Tijuana. They denied my request. I told them, ‘Why is it that when someone is American, you pay them for their vacation, but when it comes to us, you don’t even want to give us time off?’
“They started arguing and blaming one another. Regardless, I took the week off. I had already set my sights on a location. They had even promised it to me, but then they backed out. When they turned us down, we left and went to eat at another restaurant. You’re not going to believe this: We sat down at the very restaurant that would soon become Gloria’s.
“I asked the owner about a space. He told me he might be selling his restaurant, and eventually we reached an agreement. A short time later, I was able to finance the purchase of the building.”
Marco faced the challenges every small business encounters. He didn’t even have enough money to buy a coffee machine. He thought about it and told his staff, “Well, we’ll make café de olla, just like back home in the village.”
And that’s how the restaurant opened, initially bringing in just $20, $30, or $100 a day.
Gloria’s has gone through critical and difficult moments, but it has managed to stay afloat. During the pandemic, the restaurant struggled, surviving on limited sales, personal savings, and the assistance it received. Now, as it faces another difficult period brought on by economic uncertainty and immigration raids, Marco continues to confront the challenges with optimism.
“We’re moving the money around, covering expenses and making sure we can pay our employees. I always say this business is like an electrocardiogram. There are moments when it goes up and others when it goes down. Obviously, you have to make sacrifices and adjust your budget, but the one thing I will never compromise on is the quality of our food. I will never negotiate that.
“At Gloria’s, people pay for the experience they have through the food they put in their mouths. Money can often distract you. These are moments when you need to keep your feet firmly on the ground, act with honesty and humility. I always share this message: During difficult times, you have to look for alternatives. You cannot remain paralyzed, doing the same things over and over again,” he says.
“Oh, my goodness. This conversation brings back our entire journey. In the beginning, if we made more than $100 in sales, it was a reason to celebrate. My nephew would ask, ‘How are we going to get out of this?’ I would answer, ‘With determination and a lot of hard work.’
“I wanted to offer Mexican cuisine, but on a different scale. I told everyone, ‘Let’s give food a push. Cooking is an art, and that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to offer dishes that are works of art.’
“Four months later, the business began to take off. One day, we arrived and saw a long line of people waiting for a table. Customers would leave and thank us for the service and the quality of the dishes. Tears would come to my eyes, just as they did when we first opened. I knelt, looked up at the sky, and thanked God and my mother, Gloria, whose name I gave the restaurant in her honor, because her teachings have always accompanied me.
“Thanks to all of that, I have been able to build what I have today, even though sometimes I still can’t believe it. I never thought I could get this far or achieve those dreams.
“My father laughs about the whole story. We’ve lived through it together. I send him videos and show him the restaurant. We call my father ‘El Patriarca,’ the patriarch, and he tells me it’s incredible, almost unbelievable, what we’ve accomplished. ‘We have to keep going, stay strong and keep fighting,’ he likes to tell me.”
