Trump's 'Loyal' Restaurant Owner Pal Watching Business Crumble Over Prez's 'Immigration Crackdown' — 'People Are Scared'
Maximo Alvarez's loyalty to Trump has hurt his restaurant.
Oct. 5 2026, Published 3:00 p.m. ET
President Trump was told by Maximo Alvarez that he wanted to be loyal to him, but things haven't worked out for the restaurant owner since saying those words, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
Just seven months later, an employee at his restaurant, El Arepazo, said customers are too scared to come in, and that business is down about 80 percent.
Maximo Alvarez to Trump: ' I Just Want to Be Loyal to You'
Trump stopped by the restaurant for four minutes in March.
Alvarez owns El Arepazo, a Venezuelan restaurant in Doral, Florida, where the community has marked both celebrations and bad news.
Doral has about 75,000 residents, and Venezuelans account for roughly 40 percent of them, the highest concentration of any city in the country.
Alvarez, a longtime Republican who spoke at the 2020 Republican National Convention, has backed Trump for years. After the Shield of the Americas summit at Trump National Doral in March, Trump walked into the restaurant for four minutes.
Alvarez shouted that the 80-year-old had been the best president they had seen in their lives, and Trump called him a friend of long standing.
Alvarez said at the time, "I just want to be loyal to you."
Trump answered, "I know. You always have been."
'People Are Scared to Come Visit'
An employee estimates an 80 percent drop in customers.
The restaurant and the streets around it are now quiet, without the music and foot traffic from recent years.
An employee noted, "People are scared to come out and visit. When we make specials, sometimes we have to throw them out because they go bad."
The employee estimated the drop at about 80 percent.
The city voted for Trump by 23 points in 2024, a 19-point gain from 2020, after Venezuelan voters moved toward him over Nicolas Maduro.
El Arepazo Has Been Hit By New Immigration Policy
Kristi Noem moved to end designations after Biden granted temporary protected status to about 320,000 Venezuelans in 2021.
When the Biden administration granted temporary protected status to about 320,000 Venezuelans in 2021, people celebrated at El Arepazo. A 2023 re-designation covered a larger group and brought the total to about 600,000 people.
Then former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem moved to end both designations in 2025.
The Supreme Court allowed the termination to proceed in October 2025 while the lawsuit continued, and the 2021 designation ended for most holders on November 7, 2025. A small class kept work permits which were dated through Oct. 2, 2026.
Venezuelans also celebrated at the restaurant again in January, after the U.S. operation that removed Maduro and brought him to New York.
Immigration Enforcement is Set to Continue
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Border Czar Tom Homan says there are more deportations to come.
Recently, White House border czar Tom Homan spoke at Trump National Doral, a short distance from the restaurant, at the America First Policy Institute's Hispanic Leadership Conference.
He said mass deportation is happening, and that the government had made nearly 200,000 interior arrests in the last four months.
"Wait until you see what we do next year," he warned.
