
Photo by Jon Anderson
Jesus Bravo is a manager at Casa Fiesta Mexican Grill in Inverness Plaza.
Jesus Bravo is one of the managers at Casa Fiesta Mexican Grill in Inverness Plaza.
Q: How long have you worked here?
A: I’ve worked here at this location for over three years now, but I’ve been with the company going on five years.
Q: At what other locations have you worked?
A: I worked at the Trussville location.
Q: How long have you been in the restaurant business?
A: Since I was 17, so about 10 years. I started off in Trussville at what used to be called La Katrina. It’s right there in Trussville at The Pinnacle. Now it’s Casa Fiesta Trussville. I was there for about a year and a half. I went over from there to Margarita Grill [in Pelham], and I was at Margarita Grill for another year a half. Not too long is when I started in Trussville’s Casa Fiesta, and then I’ve been here for three years.
Q: What made you decide to get into the restaurant business?
A: I just like this environment because I’ve tried other things. I worked for Wells Fargo at the call center, but I prefer face-to-face interaction rather than phone interaction. The adrenaline you get on a busy day, whether it’s running food, up at the front with customers or at the bar. I don’t know, it’s just something I like. I like to be busy. I like to be active with people.
Q: What’s the best thing on the menu here?
A: We’re really known for our Fiesta Bowl, which is a bowl of rice with all the protein on top — chicken, steak, shrimp, chorizo, grilled onions and cheese on top. We’re really known for our fajitas also. Our house special fajitas come with chicken, steak, shrimp. They come with a piece of skirt steak, ribs.
Q: What do you like to do outside of work?
A: Outside of work, I do spend a lot of time with my daughter. I have a 7-year-old. She’s in second grade at Inverness Elementary School. We usually go to the movies, go to the park. I just spend a lot of time with her. Besides that, I spend time with family and friends as much as I can. Honestly, most of the time I’m here.
Q: If you had more free time, what would you like to do? Is there a hobby you’d like to take up?
A: I like to watch sports. I wish I could watch more live football games. If I could take off on Saturdays, go watch an Alabama game more often. I’ve been to a few, but it’d be nice to go to.
Q: What do you think of Kalen DeBoer?
A: He’s OK. I really follow [quarterback Jalen] Milroe right now. He’s great. With Oklahoma, I don’t know what happened. I really like how he plays.
Q: What’s something people might not know about you?
A: I’m very sensitive. When I speak with my wife, we have heart-to-heart conversations, and tears come out of my eyes, but these guys [at work] never see me that way. They never see me cry with anybody. I’ll speak with my daughter. I’ll tell her how much I love her — real sentimental conversations that these guys don’t know about me. They just see me as a manager — ‘Hey, do this, do that.’ They know that I’m very helpful because I’m always trying to help everyone as much as I can, but that’s something that they might not know about me, that I’m a sentimental guy. When I get here, I have to kind of change that up. I have to lead, you know.
Q: If you could change one thing about yourself, what would that be?
A: Patience. I wish I had a little more patience. I’ve learned to be more patient throughout the years, but every now and then, you get a problem and it kind of gets to my head too much. I wish I could just try to relax a little more. Just a little more patience when it comes down to problems because I do get a little bit stressed. … A car breaking down or something like that really stresses me out, and I wish I could be a little more calm when it comes to those kinds of things.
Q: What you say are your hopes and dreams for your little girl?
A: I hope she can graduate high school and continue at a nice university. I just hope she studies something that she loves. That’s all I wish for. She does great in school. She’s passing everything. She’s exceptional. She does cheer.
Q: If you weren’t doing this in the restaurant business, what else might you do?
A: Somewhere where there’s a team because I like working in teams. I like communicating with people. I’m not sure where I’d be honestly. Possibly another restaurant. If I did continue what I was going to do, I was studying network engineering. For one reason or another, I had money problems, and I didn’t continue that. I had to work, and I’m here.
Q: Sometimes things happen for a reason though, right?
A: Yeah, I actually just got married. I wouldn’t have met my wife if I wasn’t here because I actually met my wife through work. I met her two years ago. She’s a cousin of one of the servers here.