I've been in the hospitality business for most of my life. I started when I was 16 years old, washing dishes. From there, I learned to cook, serve on the line, cashier, pretty much every part of the restaurant. By the time I was graduating from high school, my boss, Joe, asked me what I wanted to do next. I told him, "I don't know what I want to do, but I know I like doing this." Apparently, he saw something in me too. He asked why I was content just being an employee when I could move up. So I took his advice and ran with it. And I've been running ever since.

What I love most about hospitality is the people. Different people, different personalities, learning names, seeing smiles and hopefully making somebody's day a little better. I always say I'm afraid of cameras, but I'm definitely not afraid of people. When I managed our Luby's in Eagle Pass, my wife hated going to the grocery store with me because I'd get stopped in every aisle. "Tony!" "Hey, Tony!" She'd say, "You know everybody." What was I supposed to do, ignore them? That's just not me.

Today, I have the privilege of running Luby's on Main Avenue, our flagship restaurant in San Antonio. One of my favorite things is when someone I knew from Eagle Pass or Laredo comes through town and makes a point to stop at Main Avenue just to say hello and have lunch with me. That's an amazing feeling.

Main Avenue also holds one of the accomplishments I'm proudest of in my career. During COVID, we had the option to close the restaurant and hope we could reopen later. I didn't want to do that. I sat down with my management team and crew and told them I wanted to find a way to stay open. We had a drive-through. We had people willing to work. We had options. So we decided we weren't going down without a fight. We stayed open.

In the years that followed, we kept working, kept growing the business and kept believing in what Main Avenue could be. Eventually, that restaurant became something even bigger: Luby's was able to purchase the Main Avenue property and make it our flagship location. Knowing that the work my team and I did played a part in making that possible is probably the proudest moment of my career.

But I want to be clear about one thing: I didn't do it. We did. My managers and crew stood beside me during some very difficult days. They believed in this restaurant, worked hard and helped build it into what it is today. When I look at Main Avenue now, that's what makes me proudest, not what I accomplished, but what we accomplished together.

But if you ask me what I'm proudest of personally, that answer is easy: raising my three sons. My oldest, Miguel Angel Avina, served in the United States Navy and went on to build a career in aviation maintenance. My son Rafael spent several years as a truck driver and now works in logistics for FedEx. And my youngest, Gabriel, pursued a skilled trade and trained as a general electrician. They've grown into kind, respectful and hardworking young men. Of everything I've accomplished over the years, seeing the men my sons have become is my greatest accomplishment.

Maybe that's part of why I've always believed so strongly in one thing about leadership: take care of your people. Treat people with respect and dignity, and they'll know you value them.

I think the same thing happens with guests. We have groups and families who have been coming to Main Avenue for years. We've hosted birthdays, meetings, baby showers and even weddings. Someone celebrates a birthday with us one year, and before you know it, they're back the next year saying, "We're back!" Eventually, it stops feeling like repeat business. It becomes friendship. I don't think people come here simply because we have a room available or because they need somewhere to eat. They come back because they know us. They come to see Tony, Armando, Emilio and the people who took care of them the last time they were here. That's hospitality to me.

Outside of Luby's, I'm happiest at home with my wife, working in the yard, watering plants or mowing the lawn. I love gardening because it doesn't feel like work to me. It's how I relax. And I love baseball. I'm originally from Los Angeles, and as I like to say, you can take me out of L.A., but you can't take L.A. out of me.

After nearly 18 years with Luby's, I'm grateful for what this company has meant to me and my family. But when I think about all these years in restaurants, what stays with me most isn't really the restaurants. It's the people. Take care of them, remember their names, treat them right, and pretty soon, they're not just customers or employees anymore. They're friends.