![]() ![]() ![]() “On my first day as a dishwasher, I turned around and saw this beautiful girl working the line as a cook. “I was going to be a professional soccer player, and I had a girlfriend at home in Tijuana.” He landed in Laguna Beach and hired on at a Mexican restaurant called Tortilla Flats. “This was supposed to be a three- or four-month thing,” he said. Sosa was 18 in 1969 when he acceded to his mother’s request and set off to find work to support the family. To what do we owe this crazy success? It has to be the journey. Five full-scale Javier’s restaurants dot the West Coast landscape: Newport Beach, Irvine Spectrum, Century City and Las Vegas, with La Jolla about to cut the ribbon. What began as a gutsy mid-1990s experiment in downtown Laguna Beach - one that by any measure should have struggled alongside the other coastal wannabes - caught on like wildfire and grew into what today is one of Orange County’s most recognized brands. Business is business, and Javier and his guys aren’t fooling around. A quick hour later they were being whisked off the Las Vegas tarmac in twin black Escalades that made a beeline to the porte cochère of the Aria resort. The minute they got the nod from the pilot, they hightailed it over to the company’s sleek, logoed executive jet. It was 8:15 and the pre-boarding lounge of the Santa Ana hanger was just waking up, but the Javier’s team had long since punched in. There was the son, natty in a crisp button-down, skinny tie and matching slacks and vest. ![]() ![]() The clean-cut kitchen manager who hires and trains new cooks listened intently, while the head of human resources settled herself nearby, lending calm, quiet support. Two design guys who could be mistaken for ex-NFLers explained their thinking. Hey sat huddled around a cellphone, gesturing at a screen-sized sketch of a kitchen line and weighing aloud the pros and cons of where the Vulcan range ought to go. ![]()
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