SEATTLE — A woman’s appeal to social media to help keep her grandparents’ decades-old Seattle restaurant afloat went viral overnight, leading to a full house in less than a day and a busy weekend.
Loren Jewett’s family has owned and operated La Palma Family Mexican Restaurant near Ballard for 50 years. Jewett’s grandparents, Pedro Perez Estrella and his wife, opened the restaurant after taking it over from a partner in 1976.
Perez Estrella said he named it La Palma, because it was the name of a store his father owned in Mexico.
The restaurant has had good years. It has become a staple of Mexican cuisine and, according to many, the best and greatest margarita in Seattle.
But as with many businesses, especially restaurants, costs have only increased and margins have become even thinner.
Jewett said the situation was becoming worrying for La Palma.
“We’re pretty close to the point where we have to make a decision, or close,” Jewett said. “There were five other La Palma locations, so this is the last one. It really touches our hearts. This is it,” she explained.
Jewett has a full-time job and said she hasn’t worked at the restaurant for about 10 years – but she came back to help as the situation evolved.
Looking to do everything she could to attract new customers, Jewett said she posted on the restaurant’s Instagram and Tik Tok pages on Friday, to explain the situation and see if she could gain traction online.
She states in the original video posted on October 30 that she would post every day for 30 days, to see if social media could help revive her beloved family restaurant.
She didn’t realize it would only take 24 hours.
“I was up until about 1 a.m. Friday, just looking at all the comments and sharing the stories with my mom, and I said, ‘Can you call grandpa and tell us in the morning that we need more staff?'” Jewett explained, as the Instagram post has now racked up more than 26,000 likes, several thousand shares and hundreds of comments.
By Saturday afternoon, she was even more stunned by the response.
“I stopped by yesterday at noon and the parking lot was full,” Jewett told KOMO News on Sunday. “This has never happened at an opening; we opened at noon, it was packed.”
At 80 years old, Perez Estrella isn’t exactly a social media expert. He didn’t know his granddaughter had posted these messages online. In fact, he says he found out because an employee called him Saturday to say the restaurant was flooded with people.
He said he was surprised, and also very happy to see the outpouring of support.
“It means a lot; this restaurant (is) a friendly restaurant for everyone,” he told KOMO News. “For me, this place is my life, I appreciate it,” he later added.
On Sunday, La Palma was again packed for most of the day. A few people stopped and told Perez Estrella during her KOMO interview that the social media post “worked” and that she brought them to the restaurant.
Several other tables of people told KOMO News on Sunday that the message also motivated them to come, or that they were already familiar with the restaurant, and that the message served as a spark to return.
It meant a lot to Jewett, who says the restaurant is synonymous with home and every milestone in his family’s life — a family that has gotten a bit smaller in recent years.
“I was thinking as I was driving here (that) today is the start of Dia de Los Muertos; we’re honoring my mother of course, since she passed, and I was just thinking how proud she would be that this was happening today,” Jewett said with tables filled on the restaurant’s lower level.
Jewett’s mother was a German immigrant. Family members say she handled much of the logistics of the business, while Perez Estrella was the main cook in the kitchen for about 25 years. All the recipes on the menu come from him.
Perez Estrella says the restaurant grew out of a business opportunity with another man, even though the restaurant had a different name. When Pérez Estrella had the opportunity to buy it outright, he and his future wife did so, and then they changed the name. They founded La Palma in 1976.
Perez Estrella said he came to Washington from Mexico in the early 1970s with a friend, looking for a job opportunity at Weyerhaeuser. He said that when the plane approached landing, he asked a flight attendant why he couldn’t see the White House. He realized he had the wrong Washington in mind.
At that rate, he didn’t intend to stay in Washington long, but then opportunities presented themselves and he met his future wife.
Now, 50 years later, he owns a restaurant with roots in the city that helped him achieve the American dream.
“To everyone watching and listening, the American dream is still there – you just have to work,” he emphasized.
Jewett says she plans to continue posting regularly on La Palma’s social media accounts, as they have now gained thousands of followers over the weekend.
She hopes this will help create a bigger presence by keeping the restaurant’s name and keeping business where it belongs.
Gn Health
