He Did His Homework--and It Pays Off

Expansion is on the menu at La Zorrita, a family-owned Mexican restaurant in Lake Forest that The Times wrote about last November after its owners attended a restaurant management certificate program at UC Irvine.

Fernando Barrera, who helps to manage the eatery that his father, Froylan, opened in 1987, is moving the family business to a new location at 23684 El Toro Road in Lake Forest. Barrera said the new restaurant will be four times as large as the old restaurant--but that the rent will fall to just half of what the family used to pay. Barrera credits the UCI program with helping him learn how to negotiate better lease terms and to better handle the business side of running a restaurant.

“Ignorance is the biggest enemy in the business,” Barrera said. “Many restaurants of the ‘80s didn’t recognize what people wanted had changed. They didn’t adjust to the new world of minivans in place of BMWs, and they failed as a result.”

Greg Johnson covers retail businesses and restaurants for The Times. He can be reached at (714) 966-5950 and at greg.johnson@latimes.com