Lexington, KY - When Victor Buenrostro arrived in the United States from his native Mexico City at age 19, he had two goals in mind: find a good paying job, and a good-looking woman. "Somebody told me that there was a lot of money to be made, and a lot of beautiful girls in Kentucky," Buenrostro remembered with a laugh.
Twenty-seven years down the road, he has succeeded at finding both, but over time, Buenrostro discovered something so much more fulfilling than just an occupation that pays the bills. As the executive chef at Central Baptist Hospital, he relishes the fact that each day he is a culinary artist, all the while savoring the reactions of his pleasantly surprised customers who often can't fathom how
hospital food could possibly taste so good.
When Buenrostro first arrived in Kentucky in the early 1980s, he was hired to work at a horse farm, which was a far cry from his first choice of profession. "I wasn't too much of a horseman," said Buenrostro, who married his wife, Donna, within a year of moving to the United States. "But when I first came to Lexington, there were very few Hispanic people. Most of them worked in the horse industry. To me, it seemed like the only option."
After spending a few years mucking out stalls, grooming horses and doing farm maintenance chores, Buenrostro heard of a much more appealing job opportunity at a Mexican restaurant called El Torito, which was located off Nicholasville Road. It was there that Buenrostro first learned how to be a line cook, and realized how much he enjoyed the action of being in a restaurant kitchen.
After El Torito went bankrupt and closed its doors, Buenrostro briefly worked for another now defunct Mexican restaurant chain, Chi Chi's, and then at an upscale seafood buffet called New Orleans House.
Buenrostro's first real promotion in his profession, however, came when he decided to join the restaurant
staff at the Hilton Suites in Lexington Green, where he worked his way up from a line cook to a shift supervisor, and finally, executive chef. After heading the Hilton's kitchen for nearly a decade, however, Buenrostro became heavily involved in pastoral work at his church and had trouble balancing it with his demanding restaurant position, so he scaled back his hours.
It was during this time that he was approached by Bruce Drake, one of the proprietors of Bluegrass Hospitality Group, which owns the Malone's restaurants. Drake asked Buenrostro if he wanted to help out at Malone's by making some pastas part-time each day. Buenrsotro obliged, and eventually, he was offered the position of executive chef at yet another prestigious establishment.
Just two years later, a former manager at the Hilton who now worked at Central Baptist Hospital was asked by the building's cafeteria officials if she knew of any good chefs that might want to work there. Immediately, Buenrostro came to mind, and two weeks later he was offered the job.
He accepted, but not without some misgivings.
Buenrostro wasn't used to paying attention to the nutrition content of the gourmet dishes he had created at New Orleans House, the Hilton or Malone's. As long as the food had good presentation, texture, appeal and taste, his customers were pleased. "But (at Central Baptist), you learn that what you eat can actually kill you, so you have to change the way you think," said Buenrostro, who has now worked at
the hospital
for eight years. "Food can be not just something you can enjoy, but it can be lethal. Some patients who have trouble with their kidneys can't eat bananas or anything with citrus, people with high blood pressure can't have too much sodium, some people are diabetic, etc.
So you have to be so careful."
Buenrostro said Central Baptist's menu is set apart from other hospitals because of its homemade style, affordable prices (almost nothing is above $5), the amount of care they put into making the food, and the fact they often change their specials based on the preferences of their customers. "If you don't listen to your customers, I don't care how good of a chef you are," he said. "(Being a chef) is
not just bringing a good product or good service, but it's really caring about the customers and the people you serve."
There are nearly 100 employees that work three different shifts at Central Baptist's cafeteria, which is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Buenrostro estimated that they served more than 3,000 meals a day to patients and guests.
While Buenrostro has
his own
office at the hospital, instead of sitting behind his desk, he prefers to be interacting with people around the cafeteria. "I just go all around the kitchen, washing the dishes, sweeping and mopping, creating a new recipe, teaching someone how to cook or making decorations," he said. "We are here to serve a greater purpose - to make these people well so they can go home. They don't want to be here, and we don't want them to have to be here."
Buenrostro said his faith in God is one of the key things that keeps him going in the kitchen and urges him to reach out to the people around him in more ways than just through food, such as fulfilling prayer requests for fellow employees.
Buenrostro, who lives with his wife in Nicholasville and travels to Mexico a couple times a year to visit his family and do mission work in the local children's homes, is proud of where he came from and the steps he has taken to get where he is today. But he stressed that his journey most certainly hasn't been conflict-free.
"Working in a kitchen is not an easy job or easy money," Buenrostro said. "You work in an environment that can be rough, because not everyone has the same attitude about the job. You have to have a servant's attitude.
"I've worked for the cafeteria a long time, and I know a lot of peopleÖif you just sit down with them and start talking, you understand that everybody has things going on. If we can make it just a little better with the food, through a smile, or taking people's trays, it makes a difference."