Kate and Gustavo Romero are the chef-owners of Oro by Nixta, a Mexican restaurant in Minneapolis that spotlights diverse corn varieties in vibrant seasonal cooking that landed the restaurant on our Best New Restaurants of 2024. They opened up about what they are experiencing as federal immigration enforcement continues to galvanize locals and communities and how they are helping their staff and neighbors.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
The front door is locked and we have the back door locked at all times. People have to wait for us to open the door. There are people of color who work for us who are all trying to do the right thing and go through the right processes, but they can be scared to come to work. We have people that have seen neighbors being snatched. It’s no longer a Democrat versus Republican issue. It’s a human issue.
ICE is just kind of everywhere. When you live in a place where the population is only half a million people—there are 430,000 people in Minneapolis—to have 3,000 federal agents around means they are everywhere.
When we think back to all of the years working in restaurants, there’s not a month or a season or part of the year that was as complicated as this one. What restaurants in the city are going through—nobody has an idea of what’s happening. You might not have employees one day showing up to work. It’s very complicated to run a business right now.
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People can still make reservations at the restaurant. There’s been a giant community call-out for ways to support places owned by people of color or women, and we communicate a lot with our restaurant friends, like chef Yia Vang, whose restaurant Vinai is right around the corner. What’s helping is people wanting to go out and support these local businesses. We’re all trying to do whatever we possibly can to help our employees, who are the base of everything we do.
The recent James Beard Award semifinalist nomination for Best Chef: Midwest is bringing in reservations. It’s awesome, but we celebrated for about five minutes. Any of the traction from that means we get to stay open and keep employing our people, and they don’t have to lose shifts because it’s slow. It’s still been busy, and weekends have been really great. Our sales were better than last January, because people have rallied and come in. Regular guests have asked to Venmo us because we’ve been buying groceries for our staff, ordering them Ubers, or driving them home. Minneapolis is just really, really kind.
We are trying to have all the necessary documentation to protect ourselves and our team. We can keep our doors closed. We tell our staff that if they don’t feel comfortable coming to work, then they just don’t come to work. We are not in their position or their situation, so we can’t judge what they say. We just take it and move on with the day.
I (Kate) went to buy a couple of things for an employee with our five-year-old son, and when I got out of the car, a woman told me ICE was right there. Three trucks drove by and our kid was terrified. He asked if we should get back in the car, and I told him, “We’re fine honey, you’re with me.” He asked “Is Dad going to be okay if he gets stopped?” It’s impossible to respond to a child asking these complicated questions.
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We’re lucky that Gustavo has been a naturalized citizen for a few years. Kate has taken on the role of the “gringa of the house.” If she has to go pick up a vulnerable employee who is afraid, she’s doing that, not Gustavo. But she is still afraid.
We are very proud of our Minneapolis community. People are protesting in sub-zero temperatures. People are giving out hand warmers and buying coffees for people. Five years ago, we had face masks for COVID; now we have whistles. Everybody’s got a whistle on their neck. People come into Oro just to ask if we need anything. We don’t have plans to leave, and we’d like to stay in Minneapolis for the city to get the Nobel Peace Prize. It’s the first time a city has been nominated, for the people, businesses, and the continuing protests.
For people outside of Minneapolis looking to help, there are a lot of different organizations and nonprofits we work with like Salt Cure Restaurant Recovery Fund and Help the House. They’re helping people pay rent and bills, maybe it’s buying gift cards to local businesses. We want people in other states to talk about what’s happening, so it doesn’t happen elsewhere. We need to be heard.