SEATTLE — A woman’s plea to social media help keep her grandparents’ decades-old Seattle restaurant afloat went viral overnight, leading to a packed house in less than a day, and a busy weekend.Loren Jewett’s family has owned and operated La Palma Family Mexican Restaurant near Ballard for 50 years. Jewett’s grandparents, Pedro Perez Estrella and his wife, opened the restaurant after taking it over from a business partner in 1976.Perez Estrella said he named it La Palma, because it was the name a store that his father owned in Mexico.The restaurant had many great years. It grew to be a staple for Mexican cuisine — and according to many –the best, and largest, margarita in Seattle.But like many businesses, specifically restaurants, costs have only continued to go up and margins have become even thinner.Jewett says the situation was becoming worrisome for La Palma.”We’re pretty close to a point where we have to make a decision, or close down,” said Jewett, “There were five other locations of La Palma, so this is the last one. So it’s really tugging on our heartstrings. This is it,” she explained.Jewett has a full-time job, and said she hadn’t been working at the restaurant in about 10 years — but she came back to help as the situation was changing.Looking to do whatever she could to try to coax in new customers, Jewett says she posted to the restaurant’s Instagram and Tik Tok pages on Friday, to explain the situation and to see if it could get traction online. She states in the original video posted on October 30, that she would post every day for 30 days, to see if social media could help revive her beloved family restaurant. She did not realize that it was only going to take about 24 hours.”I was up till like 1 a.m. on Friday just watching all the comments and sharing the stories with my mom, and I said, ‘Can you call grandpa and tell us in the morning that we need more staff?'” Jewett explained, as the Instagram post has now racked up over 26,000 likes, several thousand shares, and hundreds of comments.By Saturday afternoon, she was even more stunned by the response.“I pulled up at noon yesterday, and the parking lot was full,” Jewett told KOMO News on Sunday. “That has not happened ever at opening; we opened at noon, it was packed.”At the age of 80, Perez Estrella is not exactly a social media whiz. He had no idea that his granddaughter had put the posts online — in fact, he says he found out because an employee called him on Saturday saying the restaurant was flooded with people.He said he was surprised, and also so happy to see the outpouring of support. “It means a lot; this restaurant (is) a friendly restaurant to everybody,” he told KOMO News. “To me, this place is my life, I enjoy it,” he later added.On Sunday, La Palma was packed once again throughout most of the day. A few people stopped and told Perez Estrella during his interview with KOMO that the social media post “worked” and it brought them to the restaurant.Several other tables of people on Sunday told KOMO News that the post also motivated them to come, or that they were already familiar with the restaurant, and the post served as a spark to go back.It meant the world to Jewett, who says the restaurant is synonymous with home, and every big milestone in her family’s life — a family that grew a bit smaller in recent years.”I was thinking on my drive here (that) today is the start of Dia de Los Muertos; we are honoring my mother of course, since her passing, and I was just thinking about how proud she would be of this happening today,” Jewett said with tables filled on the lower level of the restaurant.Jewett’s mother was a German immigrant. Family members say that she ran a lot of the logistics of the business, while Perez Estrella was the main cook in the kitchen for about 25 years. All of the recipes for the menu came from him.Perez Estrella says the restaurant spawned from a business opportunity with another man, when the restaurant was under a different name. When Perez Estrella had the opportunity to purchase it whole, he and his soon-to-be wife did so, and then they changed the name. They established La Palma in 1976.Perez Estrella says he came to Washington from Mexico in the early 70s with a friend, seeking a work opportunity with Weyerhaeuser. He said when the plane approached the landing, he asked a flight attendant why he couldn’t see the White House. He realized he had the wrong Washington in mind. At that rate, it wasn’t his plan to stay in Washington long, but then opportunities arose, and he met his eventual wife.Now, 50 years later, he has a restaurant with roots in the city that helped him realize the American Dream.”To everybody that look at me, and listen to me, the American Dream is still here — only you have to work,” he emphasized. Jewett says that she plans to continue to consistently post on La Palma’s social media accounts, since they’ve now gained thousands of followers over the weekend.She hopes it will help create more of a presence in keeping the restaurant’s name out there, and keep business where it needs to be.
