Long Island Native's Journey Opening A Mexico City Restaurant That Hires American Deportees And Offers "Barbeque Diplomacy" Showcased On Brad Show Live

NEW YORK, May 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Hugo Hernandez was poor and couldn't find a job in Mexico. Limited options forced him to cross the desert to America. For nearly a decade, Hugo unceasingly worked two jobs before being deported back to Mexico, where the job market was as stagnant as when he had left.

"I was lost," he recalled in an interview on Brad Show Live after he was returned to his home country. "I couldn't find income to what I was used to in the U.S. The restaurant industry here doesn't pay to what you know."

It all changed for Hugo when he met Long Island native turned Mexico City local, Dan DeFossey. Dan is the co-owner of Pinche Gringo, a Texas-style BBQ restaurant located in Mexico City.

"It was a miracle that I found Dan.... I am at peace now."

Dan and his business partner, Roberto Luna, opened their American themed restaurant in 2014 after Dan ditched his corporate life in Manhattan for that of a Mexico City restaurateur. While the eatery sells classic southern-cuisine dishes such as pulled pork sandwiches, BBQ Ribs and macaroni and cheese, it has also become a place of recovery and transition for many American deportees like Hugo.

"This was not a strategy for us, this is not something we looked for," Dan said of his company hiring deportees. "What happened is that when we went through our interviewing process, and we started hiring people, we were hiring people with experience in the U.S. because it was a good business decision for us, they understand the culture."

The company now has 8 deportees on staff, Dan said.

In a time where President Trump has continuously connected Mexican immigrants to crime, Dan notes his restaurant has become a space where Mexicans, Americans and Mexican-Americans alike gather, connect and form friendships. "This is where barbecue diplomacy takes place. It has become a "place for us to realize that there are so many things about us that are more similar than different."

Catch the full interview on YouTube and Facebook with host Brad Bernstein! Brad Show Live is a 2019 Webby Honoree that airs Monday-Friday at 5:30 p.m. ET!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7owpsQWCfI&t=1339s 
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2355729427826220

Contact: Jill Gould, [email protected]

SOURCE Brad Show Live