Dear Community,

After our little restaurant, our dream of many years and hard work burned to the ground. We humbly come to you and ask for your help to rebuild it.

We opened La Cocina Mexicana in late 2021 towards the end of the pandemic not knowing what would happen. If the borders would open up again, allowing visitors to flow once more and if restrictions of the pandemic would ever be lifted. Our team of 5 took on this challenge and gave their all to get La Cocina Mexicana to where it was just a few days ago. With the crew growing to 9 employees, the whole team worked hard to create a space for the community to enjoy. Where visitors can come and enjoy something new, an atmosphere where everyone felt welcomed. Also to grow along a project they believe their hard work and families can prosper from.

Sadly, during the night of the 23rd of June after midnight, an electrical fire burned the whole place to the ground in 20mn.

With the money we had made during our first year, we had just invested in a little storage space to help the restaurant take the next step. And after so little time of being open, we do not have the funds to cover the rebuild of the entire place. But most of all we want to be able to keep paying our staff & be able to give them work again as soon as possible, they are the ones who made this place a success. 9 people & their families rely on the restaurant and we cannot let them down.

We have many ideas to continue to operate in some way, but if you wish to support us, it would allow us to reopen faster & continue providing for our community. Since the very beginning we work closely with local producers, suppliers & small businesses around us. We are proud to be part of the community here and always try to support it the best we can. But today we need your help so that we can recover from this difficult time.

Luckily our three neighbours that share a separate wall with the restaurant had no damage to their establishments/homes. But our whole roof collapsed burning down everything inside the restaurant. All of the kitchen and bar equipment was rendered 95% unsalvageable along with all appliances as well.

It gives us a knot in our throats to even think of asking for donations. But we've had so many incredible people reaching out, offering their help that we feel so grateful and humbled by the offers. Because of them and the support we are getting from our followers that we decided to give this a try.

Any bit helps. It either helps to put a roof over our place and keep operating or it helps to provide a few months of future wages to our staff and their family if we are not able to do so. But we don't want to call it quits yet. We were once able to do it on a tight budget, and with your help, we can do it again!

Thank you so much for all your support, in all forms, we are touched and grateful for it.

Sincerely,

La Cocina Mexicana's Team