Editor’s note: A reporter interviewed Lourdes E Perez Rojo in person for this story. Perez Rojo primarily speaks Spanish, so her longtime friend and a professional interpreter, Astrid Mier y Terán Jibaja, facilitated the conversation. With permission from the interviewee and interpreter, The Lawrence Times shared the audio recording of the interview with a Spanish-speaking freelancer to assist with written translations.
Ever since she was young, Lourdes E Perez Rojo, known to friends and family as LuLu, has nourished her loved ones with food.
Perez Rojo grew up in the Mexican state Michoacán, where her parents ran a lonchería, a lunch spot for homemade meals like tortas, quesadillas and tostadas.
“I grew up always around food,” she said.
Since moving to Lawrence in 2015, Perez Rojo has welcomed customers and filled their bellies with her favorite recipes at Cielito Lindo, Los Guapos and the eponymous LuLu’s Latin Food.
“The word I will say is generous. She’s the most generous person I know,” said Astrid Mier y Terán Jibaja, Perez Rojo’s longtime friend and interpreter for this interview.
Perez Rojo’s name has made the rounds on social media lately — not for her food, but because her romantic and business partner, Victor Roman, was detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in late April.
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Shortly after, a family friend created a GoFundMe that gained traction in media outlets. Perez Rojo said the slew of negative comments that followed left her and her children dismayed. Strangers voiced opinions about their personal lives, but no one took the time to sit down and talk with her face to face.
“It was tough to read them, seeing how there are such racist, negative people,” Perez Rojo said. “But I understand that everyone has their point of view. And at the end of the day, they’re not feeding me and I don’t live off of the criticism, but from my work. So I decided to leave it and respect their opinions, and they can respect mine, too, when they see it.”
Perez Rojo said that, although she never asked for the money, she is grateful to Lawrence and beyond for the outpouring of love. And she wants people to meet the woman behind the photos circulating Facebook.
“I would like them to know that we didn’t come here to take anything from them,” Perez Rojo said. “In fact, it’s the opposite — we want to share a bit of our culture and who we are, so that people know Mexico isn’t just tacos, tequila, or sombreros. There’s so much more.”
‘Yo tenía que pelear como una leona’ / ‘I had to fight like a lioness’
Los Guapos breathes with life, even during the first hour of business on a Wednesday.
Employees chatter with customers in English and Spanish as SpongeBob goofs off on the TV. The bakery display slowly fills up with treats like flan and tres leches cake, all prepared by Perez Rojo’s mom.
The boss herself hustles from the kitchen to the bar where she arranges liquor bottles. She then pushes booths around, teaching a new manager how to ensure customers have plenty of room.
If anyone wants to know Perez Rojo, all they need to do is snoop around the restaurant.
Decorations from holidays past stack on one another, like rings of a tree showing its lifespan. Color-changing LED lights reflect off silver hearts on which customers wrote messages for Valentine’s Day.
Goku waves from the ceiling, and Nintendo figurines lean against peso notes. Every nook and cranny holds a treasure with a story.
For years, Perez Rojo wanted to open a restaurant.
Her husband, Dionicio Zaragoza Perez, operated three restaurants in Topeka and Lawrence, including the beloved Cielito Lindo at 815 New Hampshire St. She met Zaragoza Perez in 2009 and they got married in 2011. About three years later, Perez Rojo got her United States residency.
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During the pandemic, she started dreaming up LuLu’s Latin Food. With money she made from cutting hair during the pandemic, Perez Rojo signed a contract in February 2021 for a suite in a strip mall on Kasold Drive.
In May 2021, Perez Rojo was widowed and LuLu’s was relegated to the back burner as she became a co-owner of Cielito Lindo. Everything about the restaurant, from kitchen prep to negotiations with distributors, was new to her, but the success of the business was synonymous with her children’s futures.
Perez Rojo beams when she speaks of her children, Mateo Zaragoza and Juan Pablo Zaragoza.
Her eldest, Juan Pablo, had a brain tumor as a baby, and Perez Rojo has been his medical advocate. She talked about years of flights to Mexico for her son’s surgeries before she came to trust American doctors. With 15 surgeries and 13 years under his belt, Juan Pablo’s medical procedures outpace his years on Earth.
“But it was very hard to arrive and take charge, because I didn’t even speak the language — I still don’t — and to have to make those people understand that I was only there for my kids, not for myself,” she said of taking over Cielito Lindo. “I’m capable of taking care of myself. But that’s what their father wanted to leave to them. I had to fight like a lioness.”
Since Perez Rojo had never met staff and they faced a language barrier, she felt employees saw her as “invading the space.”
Cielito Lindo hemorrhaged employees, but one person stayed with her: Victor Roman.
They started off as friends. Perez Rojo wanted to re-envision Cielito Lindo — restore damaged booths, add a new bar on the second floor, tear out the odorous carpet — and Victor threw in with her.
“He said to me, ‘I can do the work for you, but you have to help me.’ So I decided to help him, because I like to learn new things, and also to not have to pay as much money,” Perez Rojo said.
They fell in love as they worked, but they only enjoyed the fruits of their renovation efforts for a few years.
In December 2023, a ventilator for their walk-in cooler short-circuited and started a fire in the wall that was hard to locate and suppress.
One firefighter reported a minor injury related to the incident. There were no other injuries reported at the time, but irreparable damage was done. Perez Rojo lost Cielito Lindo and faced rumors that she set the building on fire.
“It was ridiculous. I worked two years to make such a nice restaurant, why would I do that? My children’s Christmas presents were in the office,” she said.
Neither Mateo nor Juan Pablo got replacement Christmas presents that year after theirs burned up. Perez Rojo’s portion of the insurance payout, she said, stretched just enough to survive for a year, between taking care of her kids and making rent and car payments.
“It’s easy to speculate, but when you work so hard to build a business, you fall in love with it,” she said.
‘What her soul is made of’
Since taking over Cielito Lindo, Perez Rojo has launched two eateries onto the Lawrence foodie scene with different business partners. LuLu’s Latin Food opened its doors in February 2023, two years after she first signed the contract.
She and Roman were also casting about for more work after they lost Cielito Lindo later that year. With their remaining savings, they signed another February contract for 1500 W. Sixth St., which had been a Chinese restaurant.
Just like when Perez Rojo and Roman fixed up Cielito Lindo’s, they struck a deal. Roman would do all of the renovations and construction, and she would handle the decor to make the place feel like home.
They started work on what would become Los Guapos.
Mier y Terán marveled at how the couple transformed the space. They repurposed some wall decorations from the previous restaurant and built others from scratch, like the wooden chandeliers that Roman constructed and Perez Rojo draped with plastic flowers.
When their money ran out, she gathered branches from the bushes around the property, spray painted them and used them to build the eclectic wall pieces that are still there today.
“I think what she brings to the space is that life,” Mier y Terán said.
Even though she’s been through hard things, Mier y Terán said Perez Rojo’s restaurant is full of colors that “show what her soul is made of.”
Los Guapos launched in September 2024. Translated to English, the name means “the handsome boys,” in honor of Mateo and Juan Pablo.
During an interview in May, Perez Rojo cradled a menu in her hands, pointing to the illustrated logo in the likeness of her sons. The boys, arms slung around each other, welcomed the first hungry customers in 2024 and continue to greet folks from a sign over Sixth Street.
Just like Cielito Lindo, Perez Rojo said Los Guapos restaurant is for her children.
‘He is an asset to our community’
For Los Guapos regular Erin Spiridigliozzi, there’s no warm welcome like a Victor Roman welcome.
“They greet you with open arms,” Spiridigliozzi said.
Perez Rojo said it’s up to Roman to tell his story when he’s ready. In the meantime, she felt people should know the broad strokes of what happened.
Roman was serving a two-day jail sentence for a DUI in April, Perez Rojo said.
“He got unlucky. He went through rehabilitation, he did everything they asked of him, he just had to complete his two days,” she said. “Then, when he went to serve his two days, the day that he was supposed to be released was when immigration came for him.”
Perez Rojo said Roman’s detainment cost thousands of dollars. She said she had to pay ICE around $70 to tell her where Victor was. Each time he wanted to call a lawyer or his family, he had to pay, and so did the person on the receiving end. Better food than the default offerings, like a can of tuna or a granola bar, cost him.
Roman chose to self-deport to Guatemala. Perez Rojo said he wanted to avoid imprisonment without an end date in a facility where he was given filthy water and inedible food. This way, he can support the business, making calls with distributors and coordinating from afar.
Roman hadn’t stepped foot on Guatemalan soil for 26 years when he arrived in May. He had no IDs and no transportation. He had to start life from scratch.
Perez Rojo said she’s sad. Roman is alive, but for her children, it’s like they’ve lost another father figure.
“He is an asset to our community,” Spiridigliozzi wrote in a character reference for Roman. “He is an approachable, forthright, and an honest person. He is helpful to patrons and friends alike. He is a hard worker, as evidenced by the restaurant that he and LuLu built from scratch. He has added cultural understanding, and has educated the community about his culture. He is a responsible, dedicated, and doting father. He is a supportive partner to his significant other.”
When Spiridigliozzi heard the news of Roman’s detainment, she started a GoFundMe to support Perez Rojo and Roman’s family.
Perez Rojo didn’t like the idea at first. “Help” is rarely in her vocabulary, but she came around after a conversation with Roman while he was detained.
“Victor told me that it was fine, because he understood that people could come tell me that they were sorry or give me a hug, but they weren’t able to do that for him,” Perez Rojo said. “So he said that it could be a way of telling him, ‘Hey, I’m here for you. I’m supporting you.’”
To date, people have donated more than $19,000 to the GoFundMe.
“And in respect to the funds, just know that it’s not something that we asked for or planned for, but we appreciate immensely, because thanks to this, Victor will be able to start a new life now in Guatemala,” Perez Rojo said.
A healthy son and a smile from Guatemala
Even in the midst of her grief, Perez Rojo is thinking about the food she puts in front of customers.
She talked about dishes on the Los Guapos menu, including meals from her home state of Michoacán to carne en su jugo from Jalisco, shucos from Guatemala to pupusas from San Salvador. She’s especially proud of the mole, which mixes Oaxacan and Michoacán cooking styles.
In May, Juan Pablo welcomed reporters to Los Guapos. After years of surgeries, he’s officially considered a healthy child. He plans to work at the restaurant every day this summer, pitching in on tasks like making chips to go and cleaning menus and tables.
“He says he wants to be like his dad. And he probably will be, because, well, my businesses are my kids’ too,” Perez Rojo said.
Roman is plucky, whether he’s a couple or thousands of miles away. Perez Rojo said he wants to get a rolling monitor for the restaurant so he can still greet customers with a smile all the way from Guatemala.
“We like to invest in making people feel like this business is made for everyone who comes here,” Perez Rojo said.
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Wulfe Wulfemeyer (they/them), reporter and news editor, has worked with The Lawrence Times since May 2025. They can be reached at [email protected].
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