San Francisco cafeteria, photographer Juan Méndez and referee Alejandro Hernández, ‘Arrecife Tourism Awards 2023 ‘

Honors awarded by the Arrecife City Council due to the "merits in their professional careers" and "entrepreneurship"

September 14 2023 (06:03 WEST)
The Councilor of Tourism and with the members of the Arrecife Tourism Board in the meeting for the Tourism Awards
The Councilor of Tourism and with the members of the Arrecife Tourism Board in the meeting for the Tourism Awards

The Arrecife City Council, through the Tourism Board, has approved awarding the ‘Arrecife Tourism Awards 2023 ‘ to photographer Juan Méndez and international referee Alejandro Hernández Hernández for their outstanding "merits in their professional careers", and to Cafetería San Francisco, for its "entrepreneurial commitment" in the capital of Lanzarote for 45 years.

Yonathan de León is pleased with these distinctions and emphasizes that these "outstanding people and companies are recognized in a special year in the history of Arrecife where the 225th anniversary of the foundation and origin of the municipality is commemorated". 

The capital's mayor has remarked that the City "rewards and values the talent and successes of the people and companies that are linked to its identity", and announces that the award ceremony will be "in La Recova", a space closely linked to the city's past history, and which under this new mandate has been recovered for holding events or institutional meetings. The date for the awards ceremony is scheduled for the "afternoon and evening of next Friday, September 22", within the Tourism Week, which is commemorated every year on September 27. 

The Department of Tourism has established some bases for the recognition of these awards. The Arrecife Tourism Board, chaired by the Councilor for Commerce, Tourism and Sports, Eli Merino, has approved in its recent meeting, with the endorsement of its representatives, these designations in these three categories: Award for business and professional career, award for cultural and artistic career, and award for sports career. 

Representatives from Asolan and the Lanzarote Tourism Federation, Felapyme, the Lanzarote and La Graciosa Chamber of Commerce, the Las Palmas Port Authority, the Taxi Cooperative Association and Lanzarote Car Rental, and members of hotel establishments in the capital of Lanzarote participated in this vote to grant these recognitions, as members of the Arrecife Tourism Board. 

Merino highlighted that, in this current edition of the awards, the city rewards the "entrepreneurial capacity of Cristóbal Romero", promoter of Cafetería San Francisco, and two professionals who have "linked their personal careers to their origin as children of Arrecife".

For the Arrecife City Council, the merits of Juan Méndez and Alejandro Hernández are "very well known in Lanzarote, and outside this island". 

Biographical details of the award winners  

  • Award for business and professional career

Cafetería San Francisco is a classic of the conejera hospitality industry, linked to the famous churros on Calle Real in Lanzarote.  In the summer of 1978, Cristóbal Romero gave life to the venture with the opening of this place and meeting point for many conejeros, and visitors. Even then, Calle Real had not been pedestrianized. Forty-five years later it is still open to the public and has a terrace area on the nerve center of the commercial and financial road of the capital of Lanzarote.  

  • Award for cultural and artistic career 

The prestigious magazine National Geographic has been publishing a series of wonderful photographs by the Lanzarote photographer, born in Arrecife, Juan Méndez Quesada, a resident of the Valterra neighborhood. His publications and recognition in this publication have contributed to different images of Lanzarote, uniting landscape and volcanic nature, creatively and artistically reinforce the external promotion of Lanzarote, an island with tourist activity all year round. 

The Arrecife City Council commissioned Juan Méndez to create an exhibition on spaces in Arrecife, which was exhibited in Parque José Ramírez Cerdá during the past month of August, coinciding with the San Ginés Patron Saint Festivities.  

Award for sports career 

In this category, and according to the established bases, the conejero referee, born in Arrecife, Alejandro Hernández Hernández has been awarded by the City Council with the award for sports career.  

This Canary Islands referee has been promoted this summer to the highest category of European arbitration. He is the third Spaniard in the UEFA Elite category, the highest in Europe. Hernández is a Spanish referee who was born in Arrecife, Lanzarote, on November 10, 1982. His debut in Primera took place at the beginning of the 2012-2013 season after five seasons directing in Segunda. He has also directed matches in the Champions League, the Europa League, the Nations League and qualifying for the World Cup and European Championship. 

Alejandro Hernández has directed a total of 199 matches in the Spanish First Division. In those matches, the referee has shown, 1149 yellow cards and 24 red cards directly. In addition, in all those duels he has indicated 73 penalties. 

And since this month of September, he receives this institutional distinction from the city where he was born, and his father and mother, and his entire family live.   

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