We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mayron Guerrero. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mayron below.

Mayron, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you have any thoughts about how to create a more inclusive workplace?

I truly believe that creating an inclusive work environment starts at the very top. I had the fortune to work with previous good leaders through my career that had the same vision as me in this topic, where providing a sense of belonging is primordial. Streetcar Café currently has almost thirty associates working and we are from all over the world, we have people from U.S.A.. Peru, Panama, Philippines, Honduras, Brasil, Ukraine, Turkey and Serbia.
Diversity is one of our company’s goals, a very important one; however it’s not enough to just have people of different nationalities, races, genders and sexual orientations. I encourage everyone to feel safe, free to be themselves, to feel welcome when they come to work.

Mayron, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m originally from Peru, came to the US almost five years ago and currently I manage Streetcar Café in New Orleans, a nice, comfortable, southern-style restaurant offering everything you love about the south. We are a tight-knit, fun-loving, devoted team of people from all over the world. I’m really proud of what I do, the people I get to work with everyday, our food and our special customers that come from casual drinkers to savvy connoisseurs.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I studied Hospitality Management specializing my career in hotels. I got the opportunity to get a position in a well-known hotel in New Orleans, back in 2018, before the global pandemic hit us. It was really hard to just leave my comfort zone in my country, leave my friends and family wasn’t easy at all, but I was done, I knew if I wanted a change, I had to do something different, I had to fly. I had a side job as a server in a very cozy and nice restaurant in the city “Streetcar Café”, at first, I need to admit I thought in just working there for a short period of time, since I got my main job and, I wasn’t really interested in restaurants at all.
2020 was extremely hard for industry around the world, without travelers staying in hotels or eating at restaurants.
I stopped working for several months until finally I got to go back but at that time the options were limited and decided to stay at Streetcar Café, business got better little by little and I enjoyed my time working, the staff was really close, working there felt like a having a break of all the formalities of luxurious hotels, felt like a second home and seriously, it was. I’ve been growing fast and learning a lot in the company until I got my ultimate promotion a few months ago and became the GM. I’m really proud of all the achievement and hard work, but also really glad I have the opportunity to work with an amazing team, I feel like the success of this place, other than the delicious food and amazing drinks that we serve, is thanks to each person that I have the pleasure of working with.

Any advice for managing a team?

My advice to other managers out there is that is very important to respect your staff, I’m just not talking about being polite, it’s all about respecting their point of views, making them feel that their opinion matters and communicating in a positive manner. Also make sure they feel safe, they can be paid on time, receive all the orientations to perform in a high level and overall, managers need to be consistent, reliable so our staff can count on us no matter what. If we want to encourage them to provide an excellent customer service, we need to first provide that to our employees. Praise them for going above and beyond and offer thanks in a regular basis.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.streetcarcafe.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/streetcarcafenola
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mayronguerrero

Image Credits
www.streetcarcafe.com