Many students know of the establishment called Senor Chicken with it being a popular restaurant just across the street. Many lower classman visit it regularly during lunch hours. 

Senor Chicken is a small, family business with only six staff members. Youngest member, Kyrstal Picazzo, a waitress and cashier, mentioned how stressful the work day could be with the overwhelming amount of students that visit the restaurant.

“It is busier with the students on weekdays than on the weekends,” Picazzo said.

When Senor Chicken opened on November 13th of last year, it was low on business at first due to the pandemic. Despite this, with the new school year starting,  business has started to rise.

“It used to be stressful at first, but now that we got more staff we were more prepared for the lunch rush, so it’s not as stressful as it used to be,” Picazzo said. 

The restaurant is so packed to the point where there aren’t even enough seats for everyone. This results in plenty of students just standing around, both in and outside the restaurant. 

“As of students, normally we get [them] around 10am,” Picazzo said. “Our biggest rushes would be from 11:45 to 1:51.” 

Even though their business is thriving, there are still some setbacks that hinder the place’s success, specifically regarding stolen items and student issues.

“We’ve gotten bottle Cokes stolen, we’ve gotten tip jars stolen from us, [and] we’ve gotten a window broken,” Picazzo said.

A lot of these stealing incidents have no guaranteed solution on the business’ end, and are more up to the students changing behavioral patterns.

“As for the bottles, we had to break a broom stick to  close the doors so students wouldn’t be opening it,” Picazzo said. “Then tip jars, that one has no resolution but it only happened one time.” 

Not only has there been incidents regarding objects being damaged or stolen, but there has even been a time where there was almost a student fight inside the restaurant. Another employee eventually had to make one student leave the building while the other one stayed to prevent any further conflict.

“A lot of the time we try to be lenient with them, and we know that a lot of them don’t carry money all of the time so we try to be like, ‘alright, you come everyday here’s this, just pay me off next week whenever you can’,” said Picazzo. “They’re great students. a majority of them behave pretty well most of the time, [but] there’s just little things that happen and after a period of time they get annoying.” 

Senor Chicken is not only an amazing establishment, but they are also one of the most welcoming places for students. They deserve immense support for their efforts as a small business.

“We are a family business, I’m the daughter of the owner,” said Picazzo. “I feel like if we were a big franchise it wouldn’t matter as much, but we are a family business so they’re stealing from another family.”