From corporate America to the kitchen: 9/11 survivor opens Latin Fusion restaurant in Conn.

From corporate America to the kitchen, Chef Raul Rivera’s career has made quite the pivot. However, his new venture has him feeling more fulfilled than ever.

It was one of his most significant life events 23 years ago that inspired him to finally make the shift to his love of cooking.

Raul Rivera survived 9/11. He was working in the first Twin Tower that was hit and lived to tell the story.

He was a kid from the Bronx who, like many children, didn't pay enough attention in the kitchen while his mother, aunts, and grandmother were preparing the meals.

“Asking 'Anybody remember making pasteles at Titi’s house growing up?’ kind of thing and it sort of grew from there. I found out a lot of the younger people didn’t gather the recipes from the older generations,” he said.

So, Rivera felt it was his duty to do so.

He went back to his childhood, in a way, to make up for lost time in the kitchen.

“So, I started interviewing people. I started asking a couple of people, 'How did you make these pasteles? How did you make this? How did you make that?'” he explained. “I had a very good friend of mine, her mom said, ‘Hey, let’s sit down. We’re going to go over how did I make these pasteles.’ So, for me it was having that experience with the older generation hands-on showing me how she did things.”

Little did he know, this was the beginning of LoboReys.

Rivera said he began trying the recipes out on his family members, then he started cooking for his friends. He wasn't serious about doing it to make money, he just enjoyed it and thought of it as a hobby.

However, Rivera said his friends and family members started to suggest he take his cooking more seriously after getting a taste of it.

Chef Raul admits this is quite the pivot from corporate America, but he realized cooking is something he loves to do. It’s something that makes him feel. That is important because life is short. That’s a lesson he had a front-seat at learning more than two decades ago.

“My office faced the Statue of Liberty. Next thing I know, I felt and heard this loud bang,” Rivera said.

It was Sept. 11, 2001. Rivera was working as the vice president of IT Operations for a small startup company that had recently taken a home in the World Trade Center tower. He was preparing to make a presentation that morning when the unthinkable happened.

“Next thing I know I see fire and debris going past my window and I was like, this is not good,” Rivera explained. “I called my wife immediately and said something bad just happened.”

Rivera remembers complete and utter chaos ensuing within minutes. Everyone was literally running for their lives.

“We were on the 46^th floor, obviously elevators are non-functional at this time. We all started getting into the stairwell. Started off where everybody’s running and jumping flying down, skipping three and four steps trying to get down,” he said.

While on the stairwell, Rivera said the door at the bottom floor was locked, so hundreds of people panicking were stuck in the stairwell as it began to crowd and fill with smoke from doors that were being opened.

“People trying to get out of the stairwell to go to other stairwells and they would open doors and smoke starts billowing into the stairwells. People are yelling, a lot of cussing, a lot of people fighting and screaming at each other,” he explained.

That’s when firefighters burst through the stairwell doors from the bottom and started running up the stairs toward the top. When they headed back down, it was a different site.

“At that point firefighters started coming back down the stairs with burn victims over their shoulder. You can see these people burned badly, drenched in water. They were all soaking wet,” Rivera said.

Once the crowd was allowed to file out of the stairwell and into the main concourse on the ground floor, Rivera said he was finally able to see the gravity of the situation. The tower had been hit and people were dying!

“People were jumping out of the building. It wasn’t even bodies. It was body parts just all over the place. And you couldn’t tell what it was because everything was covered in gray ash,” he explained.

Once Rivera got out of the building, he said he ran down the street and was able to see the devastation in full view.

“You could see both buildings on fire. You saw the smoke billowing and now there’s only one. It was so hard for me to comprehend the building fell,” he said. “That’s the building I was in. That’s the first one that fell.”

Rivera said the lessons he learned that day is his reason for pivoting 23 years later.

Life is short. Do what you love. Do what makes you happy. Appreciate what you have.

“My experience with 9/11 sort of taught me to appreciate the gifts that God has given me and one of those gifts has been my passion for cooking,” he explained.

“That whole experience was a major change in my personality. I used to be a very, short-tempered, hot-headed individual. I learned how to be very patient after that day. I learned how to take it slow and don’t take tomorrow for granted.”

This is how he got back to cooking. This is why he has opened LoboReys, a Latin Fusion restaurant in Trumbull.

The passion that he has for it is what he believes makes his cooking so special.

“For me, it’s from my kitchen to yours. It’s the same food I make at home for my family,” Rivera said.

His cooking is from the heart.

“It gets my creative juices flowing because I just love it. I put the Spanish music on. I get everything on. I start sautéing stuff. I start slicing and dicing and I’m just in a whole other zone,” he explained.

Although he is Puerto-Rican and from the Bronx, he said his dishes honor all Latin cuisines. In other words, you get a little bit of this, and a little bit of that.

“Even though my background is from Puerto Rico, my family is from Puerto Rico, second generation born in New York. For me it’s like I can bring in any Latin flavor in here,” Rivera said.

LoboReys is located at 4235 Madison Ave. in Trumbull and offers takeout meals, prepped meals and catering services.

Rivera said the next step is to renovate a food trailer he recently purchased and take his Latin fusion cuisine on the road.