Students sponsor local restaurant

This winter, the Trump Administration began a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation, deploying thousands of federal agents to Minnesota. This operation, named Operation Metro Surge, has been the “largest immigration operation ever,” according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

In February, Jennifer Kramer, a Strategic Communication Studies professor at CSB+SJU, offered an extra credit opportunity to her Intercultural Health Communication class to help support a local restaurant, Tres Pozoles, amid the ongoing ICE raids in Minnesota. Today, they are still working to support and uplift business at Tres Pozoles.

“My Intercultural Health Communication class is a justice focused class, so from the very first day, I wasn’t going to ignore Metro Surge and what ICE was doing, particularly because it’s having such horrendous across the board health effects,” Kramer said. “I gave the class an anonymous survey to see if they wanted to be involved in this, and it had to be unanimous… and unanimously they wanted to do it.”

Jack St. Fleur, a senior at SJU and student in Kramer’s Intercultural Health Communication class, knew he wanted to be a part of this process when Kramer brought it to the class.

“I think it was about doing something bigger than myself… it made sense to do the right thing in this aspect, and it just felt heavy on my heart,” St. Fleur said.

Lexie Amann, a CSB senior and student in the class, also has taken a leading role in this endeavor.

“It’s so cool to be doing something for the community that you’re living in. All of us in this class, we all have different backgrounds, we all have different opinions on certain things, but the fact that all of us could kind of band together to support this restaurant, it’s a really good feeling,” Amann said.

Francisco Vázquez Sobreyra and his family opened Tres Pozoles, located in the Gateway International Plaza in Waite Park, in 2024 to create and share food, with recipes derived from his own family’s recipe books.

Upon entering Tres Pozoles, you are warmly welcomed into their restaurant and offered tastings of their sauces, or adobos, and pozoles. They also offer discounts to students, veterans, police, firefighters and all first responders.

“All of my family, in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, made Mexican cuisine and ran a small business inside our home. I learned everything from my family to make the special Mexican cuisine,” Vázquez Sobreyra said.

Tres Pozoles offers a variety of authentic Mexican cuisine, most known for their pozoles, which is a traditional Mexican-style hominy soup, and known for the overall flavor of their food, which is homemade at the restaurant and an original family recipe.

“I have too many Americans, all their experiences, they go to Mexico, for vacation, and say, ‘No, Francisco, your Pozole is the best in Guadalajara, Mexico, Puerto Vallarta.’ They say that is the recipe, that adobo. The flavor. And we make it fresh,” Vázquez Sobreyra said.

Vázquez Sobreyra’s mother would tell him that the recipes were never complete without love, and he does not miss that key ingredient.

“Sometimes people talk about, you know, the magic is love that is put in the food. And this is one of those scenarios where I think the magic is love, because they are such warm, welcoming, wonderful people,” Kramer said.

When Operation Metro Surge spread throughout Minnesota in January, Tres Pozoles closed out of concern for safety. They ended up being closed for a month and a half, which is never an easy thing for a restaurant to do.

“My friends, my customers, they would be yelling my name ‘Help me, Francisco,’” Vázquez Sobreyra said as he recalled the presence of ICE agents who would gather in the Gateway International Plaza parking lot, targeting and taking people who were working, grocery shopping or enjoying a meal at one of the restaurants in the area.

Kramer has been a loyal customer since the day they opened. When she found out that Tres Pozoles was closed, she shared concern over their safety, reaching out to see how they were doing amid Operation Metro Surge. Tres Pozoles reopened in February, and when they did, Kramer went in to enjoy a meal as soon as she could, but even more than she wanted their food, she wanted to connect with the family and see how they were doing.

“Francisco came out and gave me a hug, because he knows me, and he just started talking, and I just listened. He was telling me the story of what was happening, how scared they all were and how worried he was about losing the business, as they have only been open since 2024… This was his dream to cook his mother’s and his grandmother’s food,” Kramer said.

Kramer knew she wanted to do something to help, in whatever capacity she could. Her and Vázquez Sobreyra began talking, welcoming nearby businesses to the table to discuss how Kramer and her class could support them all. She ultimately didn’t hear back from the other businesses, but Tres Pozoles was interested in the next steps.

Kramer’s class set up a GoFundMe to raise money for Tres Pozoles. Along with raising money, they wanted to raise awareness of how wonderful the restaurant is, how delicious the food is, how kind and welcoming the family is.

“You’re not getting cheap, mass-produced tacos. You’re eating slow roasted, amazing meats in those tacos. You’re getting that pozole that could feed you for a week. It’s just, the flavors are indescribable. And then they’re sprinkling the love in it,” Kramer said. “And on top of [the food], you get these lovely, wonderful humans who, doesn’t matter who you are, they’re going to talk to you, if they’re not super busy. Francisco is going to come out and chat with you and try to get to know you, because that’s just who he is. He is such a good human to have in the community. We don’t want to see him go away.”

If you are willing and able to donate, visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/save-waite-parks-tres-pozoles-great-food-loving-family or scan the QR code below, or visit Tres Pozoles to enjoy a lovely meal in a warm, welcoming space.