Juan Riesco's Nini's Deli singled out by media . . . again

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm John Harris. We're with frequent flyer on the podcast, Juan Riesco, right now. And he is coming to us from Chicago, the heart and soul of Chicago.

And you may wonder why we haven't won on again, because one, you know, you might have seen paint the wall black, you saw that his business was shut down, he went down to Dallas, he came back to Chicago, reopened his business, uncanceled himself, doing business, and now he's in trouble again.

So, Juan, why do you keep getting in trouble? What's up with that?

Chicago’s Vaccine Mandate and Christian Business Convictions

Dude, I'm not sure. Our governor, or excuse me, our mayor put a mandatory vaccine mandate as of January 3 of 2022. She said that she feels like it's best that if you're going to dine in at any restaurant, that you must show proof of vaccination and, and all the boosters that come along with it in order to dine in, which is a bit ridiculous.

And so obviously, as a Christian business, I chose to not follow suit.

Yeah, so you're inclusive, you allow people to come who don't have boosters. You're not stopping people who do have all of that. You're just saying anyone can come and get some empanadas eat. I want to ask, this is something I just thought of, I would have asked you before, but now we're recording live.

I'll just ask now. You had a few people, it wasn't many reach out to you when BLM was after you. It was kind of disappointing, because it just wasn't, I would have thought a lot of Christian organizations and conservative media outlets would have wanted to interview you.

What about now that you have hit pieces against you in newspapers? You know, you've had a few of those. Do you have now more media, conservative media coming and talking to you? Or is it kind of the silent treatment still?

Why His Testimony Makes Some Media Reluctant to Cover Him

I don't want to say it's a silent treatment by any means. I would say that part of our story that I believe deters many people from covering our story is the fact that when I tell the testimony of Nene's or the testimony of mine that the Lord has given me, it involves me denouncing the LGBTQ movement.

You know, when I came to Christ, I was fully invested in being a gay man. And Christ saved me out of that and made me a holy child of his. And when I share that testimony, and I talk about my business to stand against this, it does make some flinch, and it does make the story perhaps a bit less palatable.

And I think it's really a shame, but by the grace of God, the right people are hearing it, I believe. You know, the people who the Lord wants to hear it, and the people who the Lord wants to pick up the story are picking it up.

So, you know, it's all glory to God at the end of the day, but I would say that some people do get a bit squirmish, I think.

Yeah. Well, I did see you were on with, is it Stu Peters, I think?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That happened today, this morning. Oh, that's awesome, yeah.

And so you've had, what, two, at least, hit pieces in local newspapers? What's happened as far as that goes, all the scrutinization that's happening?

Using a Hit Piece to Preach the Gospel

Last week, or two weeks ago, we received, I think, our third or fourth citation from the city for not enforcing the vaccines and the masks and all these things. And then, for some reason, the city decided to release a list of all the businesses that were cited.

And my business was one of them that was cited. And that night, when the city released that list, I received a phone call from a local channel. They put out a piece against me. And then the next day, after that piece came out, the Tribune, which is Chicago's probably biggest newspaper, decided to put me on the cover of the newspaper.

I was on the front page for defying the mandates. And they asked me to clarify why I was defying the mandates. And then I did, and I actually used it as an opportunity to preach the gospel. And so I got to preach to the person interrogating me.

No, I'm just joking, the person interviewing me. And then I got to also the front page underneath the picture of me for violating the mandates. It said, we fear no virus. We fear no government. We fear Jesus Christ.

Wow. So, yeah, I took a hit piece and decided to preach the gospel. And I used it to preach the gospel.

Have you had any feedback from that? Like, have people come around because... Yeah, tell me. Good. Praise God.

That one really blew up. And, you know, my wife and I were talking about it, like, before they asked me to make those statements. And we both were kind of hesitant, like, I don't know, we already got cited for it.

I don't know if we should really come out and make these statements. And we kind of like talked through it. Because originally, our idea was to like, just kind of fly under the radar, not really talk about that we're not doing it.

Just chill. You know, we've already been in the front news so much this last two years. We're like, let's just chill. But when the news decided to call us, we were like, OK, you know, we didn't want to be in the front page, but y 'all are going to do it.

So we'll just clarify. Hey, yeah, we're not doing it because of Jesus Christ. And so after that, bro, yeah, I ain't gonna lie, bro. By the grace of God, that following Saturday, we had the busiest Saturday of our since we reopened.

Wow. God. And people were coming from suburbs. People were bringing their families. People were coming from local churches and they were just like, bro, we saw what you did. That was crazy. You know, you preach the gospel on the newspaper and stuff.

So the Lord really used that for his glory, bro. It was our busiest day since reopening.

How Christians and Conservatives Should Respond to Media Attacks

Well, you're one of the way you've dealt with this, not just this, but the BLM stuff. It's an example in my mind of how Christians and conservatives can handle the media, because, yeah, like you said, they're going to do the hit piece anyway.

They they're they're they they hate what you stand for. And it keeps kind of working in your favor in some ways, like not not that I'm sure you'd trade it all in for some peace and satisfaction. I mean, but but it's not like you always think probably you're going to get canceled.

Like it's over. This is it. And then it's like you kind of open your eye and you're like, oh, I'm still here. And wow, there's a crowd outside wanting some empanadas. So it's a cool thing to see when when you're fearless and bold and you trust the Lord.

I think he does bless it. And you're an example of that. Now, one of the things that I suspected as soon as I saw that there was any media attention was they're going to try to make you out to be a kook like you don't believe that there's a virus like you are just being reckless and irresponsible.

And look, that's what these Christians are like. They're there. You can't trust them. Is that the narrative you think they're trying to spin? Oh, certainly, bro.

And you know what? They bring up the same stuff from June of 2020, which was covered in Paint the Wall Black. They're like the business owner, Juan Riesco, who who makes racist and homophobic statements is now is now defying the mandates.

I mean, that's their headline every time. It's just total clickbait. It's totally like a silly hit piece. And you can tell they have nothing to talk about because, of course, they don't want to cover the actual news in Chicago, like the 800 murders that have happened.

One of them that was literally a couple blocks away from Nene's by a high school student. They don't want to cover the things that are actually matter. Instead, they want to cover people who go against the god of their of the age, which is LGBTQ, BLM movements, the god of this age.

Yeah. Well, I'm against us because we don't bow to their wicked God.

COVID Mandates, Segregation, and the Coming Pushback

Yeah. At this point, the covid stuff is is basically a religion. It's it's insane at this time. I mean, what's covid -19? We're in twenty twenty two and you are not allowed to even serve someone apparently in Chicago unless they have their vaccine pass.

That's insane to me.

Check this out. In twenty twenty, Nene's was canceled for being racist. OK, in twenty twenty two, they have legislated segregation and now canceling us for not following in their segregation law mandates, for not following their segregation mandate.

Like it's it's so.

Crazy, bro. Yeah. For someone who wants equality, diversity, inclusion, it's it has its limitations, doesn't it? So you're you're being inclusive, you're being diverse, you're being you're treating everyone equally and they don't like it now.

That's that's in their minds. So they're yeah, there's no definition, objective definition to any of this. It's all whatever fits their whim at the time. And what's the environment in Chicago like? I mean, I I'm living in upstate New York where I think there's more fear here than in other places.

But I would imagine in Chicago, I mean, does this kind of thing still work? Are people still afraid of the virus staying home just or are people starting to see through this narrative in your mind? You know, that's a great.

Question, bro. I really do believe that there is some freedom coming in the name of Jesus. I believe all freedom, whether it be in the city square through the mandates, I believe it all flows from the Lord.

And so I really do believe there is some freedom coming. One hundred and seventy five out of the three hundred plus school districts in Illinois just recently made mass optional. So it's over half. And the reason is, is because there's a lawyer who's putting pressure on the counties and actually filed a lawsuit.

And I think he either won. I don't know all the details. I don't want to misspeak, but essentially the mandates are currently in the school districts. It's currently illegal. And that just happened this weekend.

So any school district that is still enforcing it in Illinois is technically breaking the law because of this lawsuit that's currently underway right now. And so there was there's been huge high school walkouts today and yesterday because schools are literally saying vaccinated kids need to quarantine in the gym.

And it's schools all across Illinois are doing that. And these kids are just fed up. And so, man, I really believe there is some breakthrough coming. And I really do believe.

A lot of people are waking up. Wow. OK, I didn't know about that lawsuit. A lot of stuff's happening.

In Illinois right now. Well, we're one of like 10 states that still do this stuff. Now there's.

An there's an election later this year, right, for the governor. OK, so that that should be interesting to see kind of how fed up people really are if we can trust those election results. But anyway, well, you're going to keep doing what you're doing, I'm assuming.

Right. You don't have any plans to back down or move or anything like that. I have no plans to pull a Joe Rogan. You're not going to apologize with your cell phone camera. So when's your when your court dates?

Just so we can be praying for you as you go into these. Amen. Absolutely. Please keep my.

Family night in prayer. You know, with everything that comes out, there's always like that shock element because then, you know, we kind of have PTSD in a sense where it's like, OK, my phone is blowing up with negative reviews again.

You know, I'm getting tons of emails that I got. I got a letter in the mail today from a supposed Christian who says that I'm being used by the devil. And it came in the mail and they also didn't leave a return address or any way for me to contact them.

So there's just always like that silliness that comes with it. And by the grace of God, you know, we're not worried. We trust the Lord fully. But our court dates are March 22nd. So please keep our family in prayer.

And then the final day of March, I think it's March 31st or March 30th. We have two court dates coming up and we're just trusting the Lord for deliverance. You know, for the the court date that we had for the mass, by the grace of God, the charge was actually dropped for whatever extraneous reasons they chose.

But, you know, I believe it was all the Lord and his deliverance at the end of the day. And and so for these ones, this is not for the mass. This is for the vaccine specifically. One organization that's taking us to court is what's called the BACP, the Business and Customer Protection Agency.

And they're basically the organization that Lori created, I believe, just for enforcing these draconian mandates. And then the other one is the city health department. It's taking us to court for not enforcing it, too.

So, you know, all glory to God. We believe that whatever the price they put on us, we believe it's worth it. We believe standing up for Jesus is worth it. We.

Believe standing up for our constitutional freedoms is worth it. So how many how many businesses were on that list that they put out? I think it was like 10 or 15. OK, but you're the only one that's making the news.

I'm the only one on the front page. That's interesting. Well, we'll be praying for you then on the 22nd, Tuesday of March and then Thursday, the 31st. As you go into court, let me know how that turns out.

And, you know, the Lord's will be done. You're standing up for him. You're doing the right thing. You're being a great example. And I would just encourage you, you know, don't lose heart. I know that I probably in your more quiet moments, I would assume it does maybe get a little bit discouraging or a little like just, Lord, really again, like I just feel like I go from from one controversy to the next.

But it's exciting times and we're going to be telling our grandchildren about this in the future. Like, hey, I wrote grandpa, you remember when the covid stuff happened and the BLM protests like I was there and I'll be like, yeah, I was friends with Juan.

But you'll be able to tell firsthand, you know, what you live through. And so I'm just thankful for you, brother. And we're praying for you. The Lord is with you. Keep doing what you're doing. Don't stop.

And and, you know, rely on him throughout all of this. Thank you so much. So good to see you. Yeah, good to see you, too. God bless. All right.