Enrique Garcia has grown his tamale business from a small coffee shop in the Mercado Central of Minneapolis to a flourishing multi-enterprise empire by relying on a strong partnership with his wife, Noelia; hard work; a willingness to accept outside help; and a commitment to treating employees like family.
Today, Garcia’s La Loma businesses employ 50 people and make 13,000 tamales a week, and he’s not done yet. La Loma Tamales Wholesale now distributes frozen tamales to Cub, Byerly’s, Lunds, and Kowalski’s grocery stores, and Garcia is working on achieving his goal of distributing La Loma tamales nationwide. In addition, he operates a catering company and has new restaurants in St. Paul and at the Midtown Global Market in Minneapolis.
This gamut of companies is quite an achievement for a man from rural Mexico who spent many years working in Minneapolis restaurants as a cook. When he and Noelia started the coffee shop and tamale business, it took a good year before they started making money on the operation. Garcia credits his willingness to accept help from the Neighborhood Development Center with accounting and business analysis to getting the company on track. Now he seeks to counsel other entrepreneurs by serving as president of the Mercado and by helping long-time employees start their own La Loma restaurants.
Garcia encourages his workers to continue their education, which is all part of his passion for treating employees like family. His company also rarely passes up an opportunity to donate tamales and money for scholarships to local schools and organizations.
In 2005, La Loma earned an award for social responsibility from the Latino Economic Development Center for being a good employer, offering incentives to employees, and giving back to the community.
Despite his busy schedule, Garcia always spends time with his wife and two children on the golf course, in the swimming pool, or at church.
