Owning and operating a restaurant is not the easiest of endeavors.
Carlos Weir and his wife, Erika, have accepted the challenge of running not one but two local restaurants. The first, Las Chabelas, opened in Brawley on Main Street in 2003 with only four tables, two booths and three employees. The second restaurant is The Courtroom Bourbons and Grill in El Centro, which opened in 2014.
Carlos Weir is native Californian who grew up in the greater Los Angeles area and moved to Imperial Valley more than 30 years ago. Erika Weir is a native of Imperial Valley.
When the couple decided to operate a restaurant, they knew the risk. Although the closure rate for restaurants in the first year is reported as high as 90 percent, the real number over the past 20 years is closer to 17 percent. This is actually a lower failure rate than other service-providing businesses, where 19 percent fail in the first year.