Column: Evanston’s Gyros Planet and Taqueria will stay open after all. It raised more than its $30,000 goal in 24 hours. ‘People just showed us so much love and support.’
On Thursday, Erika Castro and Pablo Sanchez were preparing to bid farewell to their family business, Gyros Planet and Taqueria in Evanston, having made the painful decision to close their doors on Saturday after a brutal year of personal and professional losses.
On Friday, after a series of twists and turns, they learned they can remain open for business.
The storefront restaurant, located down the block from Evanston Township High School, has been struggling to cover its rent and other bills for the past few months. ETHS students have been remote learning for close to a year, and the lack of foot traffic has hit the restaurant hard.
In spite of their dwindling customer base, the couple made a decision early in the pandemic to feed as many hungry community members as possible. They committed to giving away 100 free lunches a day, setting up a table and filling it with carryout bags of food for people to take for free. They estimate they’ve given away more than 25,000 free meals since April.
“When I think of the people who are emerging as superheroes during the pandemic, Erika and Pablo are at the top of my list,” Rebecca Cacayuran, Evanston Community Foundation’s vice president for community investment, told me Thursday. “They’re beautiful souls. This has been their ministry.”
The Evanston Community Foundation identified Gyros Planet and Taqueria as one of five minority-owned businesses working to combat food insecurity locally. Until the first week of December, the social services organization was using some COVID-19 rapid response funding to help Castro and Sanchez cover the costs of the free lunches.
At the same time that funding ended, Castro and Sanchez’s paying customers continued to dwindle.
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“I feel the pain all our community has,” Castro told me. “People are not spending money because they are scared the same way I am scared. They don’t know if they’ll lose their job. I understand that.”
They started telling customers and community members this week that Saturday would be their last day. I wrote a column announcing the closing on Thursday. Nina Kavin, an Evanston activist who runs the Dear Evanston community blog, told me about a GoFundMe she launched on Wednesday night, a last-ditch effort to raise $30,000 on the restaurant’s behalf.
“I just have to try,” Kavin told me. “They work so hard. They’re so selfless and so kind and so generous and so hardworking. And it’s heartbreaking to me to see people who give so much end up having to give away the store, so to speak. COVID has just brought out the best in people and the worst of tragedies, and I just want them to get through this.”
The $30,000, Kavin reasoned, would cover their rent for the next six months and give them some wiggle room in case ETHS remains remote until the fall. The GoFundMe had collected a little more than $7,000 by Thursday morning.
Then the community stepped in.
By 6 p.m. Thursday, the fund was at $20,000. TV producer Mike Royce, whose most recent projects include Netflix’s “One Day at a Time,” tweeted the column and a link to the GoFundMe. A couple of big donations joined alongside the $20 gifts: $2,000, $3,000.
By 9 p.m. Thursday, the fund blew past $30,000.
I hopped on the phone late Thursday with a tearful Castro, who wasn’t sure whether they could keep the business running, whether the landlord could extend their lease, whether they should take the money and donate it to other struggling restaurants in Evanston.
By Friday morning, she and Sanchez had decided they would use the money to keep their restaurant open. But the landlord told them he had already found a new tenant for their space. They started to explore empty storefronts in Evanston, ideally away from downtown, where Castro said rents are way out of their league.
Then, around 2 p.m. Friday, Castro said the landlord called and said they can stay where they are.
“He said, ‘This is what the people want,’” Castro told me Friday. “He doesn’t want people to think he’s a bad person. And he’s not a bad person. He said he heard from the community and he just wants to give us the opportunity to stay.”
Castro said they agreed to pay him six months rent up front to secure the spot.
“It’s so many emotions,” she said. “It’s like a weight from me. A relief. I never expected this. People just showed us so much love and support.”
Kavin continues to monitor the GoFundMe, which had reached $46,000 by Friday afternoon.
“I am feeling amazed and grateful and really moved,” Kavin said. “I think it’s a testament to their story, to who they are. They inspire me, the people who want to support them inspire me, the larger community inspires me. It’s just really moving.”
A happy ending, and a new beginning — the kind that feeds your belief in humanity.
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