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Still Not Over The Rainbow

KATHY MOORE/STAFF

Arco Iris restaurant owner, Jorge Gonzalez, right, walks through the kitchen during lunch. The restaurant is celebrating 25 years in business.

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 17, 2007

Updated: 11/15/2007 07:22 pm

Additional Photos

WEST TAMPA - Dressed in black jean shorts, white T-shirt and matching white sneakers, Jorge Luis Gonzalez invites little attention.

That's the way he likes it. He wants to blend with the people - his people - the customers.

"I am natural," said Gonzalez, the Cuban-born proprietor of Arco Iris Restaurant, 3328 W. Columbus Drive. "I don't want them to see me as an owner."

His approach has helped him create an institution that will celebrate its founding 25 years ago with a customer appreciation day Sunday at the restaurant. Gonzalez plans to have free food for up to 5,000 regular customers and live music.

"Giving away free food is the only way I know how to say thank you," he said in Spanish.

Gonzalez bought the abandoned restaurant for $6,000 in 1982 and kept the name - which means rainbow in Spanish - because he couldn't afford to change the outdoor sign, said his wife, Madelin Gonzalez.

The husband and wife ran the business with his brother, Eddy Gonzalez. There were few customers in the beginning, and it was difficult to compete against the established restaurants along Columbus, Jorge Luis Gonzalez said.

He said he had little money and few distributors who gave him credit; he bought cans of Cuban coffee at a nearby bodega because he couldn't get bulk packages. A few customers encouraged him by complimenting the food and service, and telling him he would eventually succeed.

A Tampa Tribune restaurant review a year or two after he opened sparked the attention he needed, Jorge Luis Gonzalez said.

"We just stuck to our guns and waited it out until word got around," Madelin Gonzalez said.

When it opened, the restaurant could seat about 30. Today, it seats 140, and Gonzalez estimates he and his 28 employees serve 800 to 1,200 people daily.

He credits success to quality and authentic food, customer service and his wife and their three daughters, Jeanette Llauger, 25, Yvette Blaz, 21, and Lizzette Gonzalez, 13.

Gonzalez, 53, said he got hooked on cooking through his father, Manuel, who made bricks and roof tiles but lost his business shortly after Fidel Castro took power in 1959.

Manuel Gonzalez created a clandestine business selling Cuban coffee and took his son out of school at age 7 to sell coffee on the streets. Jorge Luis Gonzalez also helped his father make croquettes to sell.

When he began mandated military service at 16, Jorge Luis Gonzalez took a job in the kitchen. After three years, he got a job cooking for schools in Havana.

Gonzalez said he arrived in Tampa from Cuba in 1980 seeking freedom. He worked at a factory and did part-time restaurant work. He used to pass by the vacant building that would eventually become his restaurant and dream of the possibility.

Today, he says he is a slave to his job. He arrives at 7 a.m. and usually won't leave until after 9 p.m. every day. But he enjoys the friendships with customers that have grown over the years.

"This turns into a home," said Gonzalez, who sold the business in 1990 seeking a larger establishment but bought it back three years later.

The menu includes roasted pork, picadillo, palomilla steak, Cuban sandwich and fried plantains, with entrees ranging from $6 to $9. It also offers Cuban-style Chinese special fried rice, which Gonzalez learned to cook with a Chinese restaurant owner in Tampa. He said it is made with more soy sauce, giving it a darker tint, and also has extra shrimp, ham and pork.

Regulars say they like the food, the personal service and the chance to chat with other customers.

Ignacio Cobo ate lunch this week with friend Steve Palukaitis. Cobo, of Tampa, has been a regular for years and recently introduced Palukaitis to the restaurant.

"It is the Latin atmosphere and the blending of cultures," Cobo said. "If you don't feel like having Latin, you can have Chinese."

Local physician Luis Crespo said he eats at the restaurant two or three times a week and has known Gonzalez for years.

"He has a great heart," said Crespo, of Clearwater. "He is very loyal. If he considers you his friend, there isn't anything he wouldn't do for you."

Reporter Jose Patino Girona can be reached at (813) 835-2110 or jpatino@tampatrib.com.

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