Cafe to open with visually impaired owner

It took Cuban immigrant Marcos Alian Hurtado Vilar six years to open his first business, and he considers himself lucky to have accomplished so much in less than a decade.

Hurtado Vilar, 46, arrived in Las Vegas in 2010 as a political refugee from Cuba. The big buildings and casinos amazed him and he described his first three months as a honeymoon.

He started working as a dishwasher at New York-New York. But after a couple of months, his coworkers noticed there were a couple of problems — he kept breaking glasses and he also wasn’t very good at wiping the dishes.

There was a logical explanation for the shattered glassware and unwiped dishes — Hurtado Vilar is legally blind.

His coworkers recommend he find a service that would help work around his disability.

Hurtado Vilar found Nevada’s Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation, a resource that helps individuals with physical and mental disabilities across the state find employment. DETR counselors worked with him to identify what weaknesses his visual impairment caused and improve upon them.

His counselor later recommended he join Business Enterprise Program, which gives people who are visually impaired the opportunity to run their own business within government buildings.

Before he could do so, Hurtado Vilar had to work hard to learn English and even traveled to Anchorage, Alaska, to work a job for a year to meet the program’s job experience requirement when employment opportunities in Las Vegas were scarce.

His hard work paid off.

On Thursday, Hurtado Vilar will celebrate the grand opening of his first business, Aroma Cafe, inside the Southern Nevada Health District at 280 S. Decatur Blvd. He has hired two cashiers and two line cooks to help run the cafe, which serves healthy options from American, Mexican and Caribbean cuisine.

“It was a hard and long process to get here,” Hurtado Vilar said. “I feel very proud as a Cuban immigrant and a Latino, to have gotten to where I am today

“When I talk to some people, they tell me opening a business takes a long time, they’ve been saving up money their whole lives. I thank the Lord for this program.”

Business Enterprise Program has helped visually impaired entrepreneurs establish 32 businesses in Northern and Southern Nevada, who in return, give a portion of the earnings to keep the program operating.

“With our assistance initially, these individuals are able to accomplish their goal of becoming entrepreneurs and owning their own business and being successful without relying on the government’s help or the government subsidies,” said Drazen Elez, CEO for the Rehabilitation Division.

Hurtado Vilar said he’s always wanted to open his own restaurant and follow in the footsteps of his grandmother, who emigrated from Spain to Cuba and owned a food and hospitality business on the island.

Hurtado Vilar admits his disability can still makes managing a cafe difficult. He said he has trouble reading numbers on the cash register, causing his line to back up. He doesn’t dare to prepare hot meals by himself, and instead busies himself with cold menu items such as sandwiches.

To get to work, Hurtado Vilar relies on public transportation or rides from his wife.

“Some people say the American dream is (having) a house or a car, but I say no, the American dream is to open a business because when you have a business, you may be supporting another dream,” he said.

Contact Rocio Hernandez at rhernandez@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5208. Find @rociohdz19 on Twitter.