Berrios smiles at her post at the Fran's cash register.
Fran's Cafe employee Yiraida Berrios loves her job. She loves the students she works with even more.
Sometimes Berrios greets students by calling them "mama." Other times, she greets them with a fist bump.
Always a source of comfort to those in need, Berrios hugs a student one night in Fran's.
People don’t often call me “mama” or “baby,” but there’s something endearing and strangely comforting about being greeted by those two names when I walk into Fran’s Cafe.
Yiraida Berrios, the so-called face of Frans, truly makes you feel like you are her baby. As she takes your 1 a.m. order in the Willard dining hall, she’ll ask you what she believes are life’s most important questions: “What do you want? What are you feeling? What makes you happy?”
Walking around like she owns the place, not with arrogance but like a loving mother keeping watch over all her children, Berrios is in her element. During her four years working for Northwestern Dining, she has come full circle, from Frontera to Sargent to Einstein’s. “And then I came back home,” she said.
Just like Fran’s is her home away from home, the students eating away their stress late into the night or simply stopping by to say hello are practically her second children. Both at home and at Northwestern, “I’m the cool mom,” she said.
Born in the Dominican Republic to a Dominican mother and a Puerto Rican father, she immigrated to Chicago in 1987 as a young girl, where she has successfully raised her three children and worked multiple jobs. Just last year she legally married her husband, whom she has been with for 23 years.
“I see the kids here like they’re my own, because I got kids their age,” Berrios said. “I know how I would like my kids to be treated. I always believe what goes around comes around, so the good that you do will come back to you.”
Most anyone who has eaten at, or even simply walked into Fran’s can attest to this philosophy. As I followed her around on the job, wiping tables and getting ready for the 8 p.m. rush, a student came in asking whether the dining hall and C-store were closed (indeed, they were). But Berrios couldn’t stand to say no.
I walked with her to the cash register, which she opened up for the lone customer, and observed as she struck up conversation with this new friend. After learning his name and hometown, she made sure to let him know, “Whenever you have one of those crazy nights, just swing by. I got you.”
She loves what she does, she said, and she loves the people she serves.
She told me, especially coming from an entirely different culture in the Dominican Republic, how interesting it is to speak to each student and see how different we all are. Working late night dining hall shifts, Berrios gets to hear students’ stories and how they think, and she makes sure to take full advantage of it.
“When people talk to you they just think you’re not listening, so I try to remember and listen,” she said. “I mean, that’s very important for all people.”
For instance, Berrios makes sure to give students a mood lift when they come in upset about a midterm score and remembers to ask about exams they were studying for the night prior. But her concern doesn’t end there. She recalled one particular instance when a student told her about a serious medical concern and the little gestures she made to console him.
“Without them, I won’t be here,” she said. “That’s why I got a job, because of them.”
I’ve always believed that moms are the world’s greatest superheroes, and Berrios is living proof of my theory. After going to bed around 5 a.m. each morning after taking my usual order of chicken tenders and handing me the oh-so-familiar Fran’s buzzer, Berrios stills wakes up with a bright smile. You have to like what you do, Berrios said. And it’s clear that she does.
While she loves Fran’s for its coffee shakes and chicken Caesar salad, it’s more than clear to me that she’s really here for us.
“It’s like it’s another world when I come here,” Berrios said. “It’s, I don’t know, it’s something else here.”