Toro Loco

The COVID-19 pandemic has Latino family businesses on the edge nationwide. One woman describes the plight of her popular Toro Loco restaurant in South Orange, New Jersey.

New Jersey restaurant among the first victims of the coronavirus bust

By Jorge Melchor

Teresa Guzman is 84 years old and faces a serious threat as the coronavirus cripples her ethnically diverse neighborhood in South Orange, New Jersey. But her worry is not about catching the virus, it’s about what it has done to her once-thriving restaurant.

Guzman, an immigrant from Mexico, owns the Toro Loco restaurant. With orders to limit business only to takeout and delivery, she was compelled to lay off almost all of her 17 employees. She is like thousands of Latino entrepreneurs across the country who hope the federal government’s aid for small businesses actually makes it into her hands.

Guzman says her employees qualify for unemployment and some may also get cash assistance from the federal government. 

But like other small business owners, Guzman worries that a rescue -- loans, tax relief and grants authorized by Congress and the Small Business Administration -- will be too small for her and arrive too late. About half of small business owners in the U.S. said in a recent Goldman Sachs survey that they have only enough funding to stay open for two months.

Guzman said she’s concerned because she saw no one in the government’s emergency response talks who was likely speaking on behalf of tiny Latino businesses like hers.

 "I have never seen anything like this in my 33 years that I have been in this business," she said. “If I continue the social distance I don't think we can continue in this business. I will lose everything.” 

Although the pandemic forced New Jersey authorities to put commercial life on pause, Guzman says the bills haven’t stopped.

She still has to pay her taxes. (No one has told her to stop paying them, so she will continue to do so to avoid trouble.) She has to pay to maintain her restaurant, as well as her mortgage.

Each day the outlook grows worse. She fears her 33rd year in business could be her last.

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Jorge Melchor is a visual and data journalist with more than 15 years experience working for video, online, print and broadcast media outlets, including NBC News, The New York Times, the History Channel, and the Financial Times. He has worked as a freelance journalist in Mexico and the U.S., and currently lives just outside New York City.