The dad is now settled in East London and is serving up tacos which have been reviewed and rated as the best in London
Juan Manuel and his wife were driving their 12-year-old daughter back from school when he received the text message. He needed to find £25,000 to give to a drug cartel or he was going to be killed, alongside his wife and child.
“I just drove, my legs were shaking and I got to my house and I told my wife ‘don’t say anything just jump [back] in the car [as we’re leaving]’. I’ve never felt so much fear in my life,” Juan said. “I was a brave man until they tried to kill my daughter, that’s when my legs shook for the first day in my life.”
Juan believes the fact he is still alive is thanks to miracles – the first one involves a cancelled flight. After leaving their home in 2022, the family hid for a month-and-a-half at a cousin’s house in the middle of the state, not too far from Mexico City.
‘My uncle was killed by the cartel – I think I was next’
“I knew the UK was a country without guns, I was also looking at Japan, Australia and New Zealand, but the UK is the country without guns and that’s why I decided to come here,” he said. While Juan still doesn’t know exactly why the cartel targeted his family, he believes it stems from a feud with his uncle, who was killed by the same cartel.
“I had an uncle that was a federal agent who put a lot of people in jail. He was killed by the same cartel, who also killed a cousin – I think I was next,” Juan added.
He booked a flight from Mexico City to London, which would stop over in Istanbul. The flight was cancelled, and no one at the airline could give him a reason why. Juan rebooked a flight which took the family directly from Mexico City to London the next day. It was the first time he slept properly in around a month.
When he arrived in the UK, immigration officers told him that if he had stopped off in Istanbul he would have been made to seek asylum there, preventing him from what he now feels is his God-given mission – bringing the best tacos to London.
“So that’s the first miracle and still I don’t have a human explanation for why that flight got cancelled,” he said. Juan and his family lived in a hotel while they waited for their papers from the UK Government.
The family went through a dark period while staying at the hotel, after Juan’s wife lost their baby three months into their pregnancy. He says that both he and his wife nearly killed themselves.
During this time, Juan began going to church and changed his life completely. He was given an opportunity to take part in a project where asylum seekers were able to create a food brand representing their country, funded by Hounslow Council, in return for a free solicitor.
“I prayed for God to give me a mission, I said to God if you want to use me you need to give me a purpose because I don’t want to live anymore, I got baptised gave my life to Jesus and changed the way I was,” he said. Juan then met a man who owned a food stall in Peckham’s Rye Lane Indoor Market who allowed him to work for him and raise money for his church while he was away in Dubai. This was the second “miracle” in Juan’s survival.
“The moment I gave the pastor the £3,000 profit we made in three days, in that moment I got an email I had been waiting one-year-and-six months for – the second interview for my asylum seeker case,” he said. Guacamoles, which serves up “London’s best tacos”, was born after Juan and the owner of the food stall saw a gap in the market for real authentic tacos.
‘I think they need to make the asylum seeking process faster’
“I had £70 to start as a gift from my pastor and we bought a bit of tortilla and meat. The first day we made £36 in profit and I gave it back to my church in Hounslow,” he said. Now, while living in Leytonstone, he runs tacos stall full-time and hopes to expand across the UK and then Europe.
Juan thinks the UK needs to make the asylum seeking process more effective. He also believes the vetting process should be stricter, so that the people who need to seek asylum most can get it faster.
“I don’t understand why they take so much time, I know people who have been in a hotel for almost five years with little kids – who’s paying for that?” he said. “I think they need to make the process faster. People in the UK may be really mad about that because it costs around £10 million each day – that money should be in parks, better electricity and gas rates, or something else.”
Guacamoles is open everyday at 48 Rye Lane, SE15 5BY.
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