Immigrant restaurant owners get by with a little help from their friends
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DENVER — As the pork shoulder for her signature tortas de lomo cooks, Angy Lara bakes inside her un-air-conditioned food truck.
She takes a short break to slip inside the neveria — or ice cream shop — just a few steps from her truck to cool herself down before bracing the summer heat again.
Lara owns Tortas El General, a food truck in southwest Denver specializing in tortas. She moved to Colorado from Chihuahua, Mexico about nine years ago.
She opened her restaurant to bring the flavors of her home to Colorado. The recipe for her tortas de lomo came from her grandparents, and she tries to source ingredients from Chihuahua or from Chihuahuan vendors whenever possible.
Lara, who worked as a dental assistant in Mexico, found jobs in kitchens when she first moved to the U.S. She eventually opened a catering business from her home, saving up enough money to rent a food truck. She began serving roadside tortas in February.
In order to receive a food truck license in Denver, Lara had to submit paperwork like a propane permit, zoning use permit and a business license.
Lara is a Spanish speaker, and while there are some Spanish-language resources available, Lara relied on her network to help her complete the application. Her journey highlighted the importance of community support for immigrant business owners in Colorado.
“It’s been a challenge for me because of the English, filling out licenses, getting permits, all that. A friend who already speaks English helped me fill out the paperwork,” Lara said in Spanish.
When she was preparing to launch her restaurant, Lara attended a food business course at Mi Casa Resource Center, a Latino-focused career and business center in Westwood. The 10-week program, called La Receta, teaches students how to start and maintain a food business.
The instructors at Mi Casa Resource Center also helped her translate the paperwork and navigate the process of starting her business, Lara said.
Entrepreneurship is a popular career path for immigrants to the United States. A 2022 MIT study found immigrants are 80% more likely to start a business than citizens born in the U.S. Many of these immigrant business owners go into the food industry. In 2018, almost one third of the restaurants and hotels in the U.S. were owned by immigrants-owned.
Restaurants are notoriously difficult to keep open, and many food businesses have had a hard time bouncing back since the COVID-19 pandemic. About 150 restaurants closed in Denver between 2023 and 2024.
The La Receta program is designed with immigrant restaurateurs in mind, said Jennifer Mariñelarena, the assistant marketing and communications director at Mi Casa Resource Center.
“To start a business in Mexico or Bolivia or wherever they may be from, they have different food regulations or different permits,” Mariñelarena said. “[La Receta has] that cultural aspect of explaining to people, ‘This is why you need permitting. It is done differently here.’ Also being respectful of their mixed status if they do have that or really protecting their safety in that way.”
Marcelo Alvariza graduated from the La Receta program in 2023. His restaurant, Orejano, opened in Aurora on Havana Street in July. He held a grand opening August 25 in honor of Uruguay’s independence day.
Alvariza is from Uruguay and has lived in Colorado for almost 20 years. He worked as a realtor in Uruguay and worked in construction when he moved to Colorado.
Orejano, which Alvariza runs with his wife, serves empanadas and sandwiches, including the chivito, the national sandwich of Uruguay.
Touches of Uruguay are sprinkled throughout the restaurant. The logo is based on the last photo Alvariza took of his father, and the colors — yellow and black — are the same as Alvariza’s favorite soccer team, Peñarol. Soccer jerseys and photos of Alvariza’s father decorate the restaurant’s walls.
The name Orejano, meaning “free spirit,” was Alvariza’s father’s nickname. In Uruguay, Alvariza and his father talked about opening a restaurant together where they would serve traditional Uruguayan barbecue in the countryside. His father died before they could make the dream come true.
Alvariza said starting a restaurant in Uruguay is more about community support rather than city approval. There were far fewer forms to fill out and permits to submit. Alvariza and his father knew they could count on their friends and neighbors to make the business possible.
“Over there, it’s more like, with friendship, you can do everything,” Alvariza said. “It’s not even close to hard like it is opening a business here, [with] so many regulations.”
Before he joined the La Receta program at Mi Casa, Alvariza tried launching his restaurant as a food truck. He didn’t like the model and found managing the truck too difficult while he still working at his flooring company, so he decided to sell the truck.
Securing the permit to open Orejano’s brick-and-mortar restaurant wasn’t too difficult, Alvariza said, but it took more than three years to get the building from the landlord due to issues with the previous tenant.
“It’s different. It’s a challenge. I’m just learning on my way,” Alvariza said.
Alvariza lives in Littleton, but he decided to open his restaurant in Aurora because many of his connections — and potential restaurant customers — that he made through his construction business live in the area.
The Uruguayan community in Colorado is small, Alvariza said, so he hasn’t found a lot of support from Uruguayan immigrants looking for a taste of home. Most of his customers are from Puerto Rico, Mexico or Venezuela, he said.
After one month of business, Orejano hasn’t made a profit, but it hasn’t lost money either, Alvariza said. He’s not worried about those numbers. He expects to break even over the next several months as more customers get to know the restaurant.
Lara’s Tortas El General is in the same boat. Sales were slow when she first parked her truck in the neighborhood, but they’ve increased as more people try her food. She’s even started to notice some regulars stopping by her truck.
“For me, it’s been a source of pride to have started from scratch and grown without much support but through organic growth,” Lara said in Spanish.
The location of Lara’s truck, parked in front of Neveria El Alamo on Federal Boulevard, makes for a convenient stop for diners looking for both dinner and dessert.
It’s also the only place Lara could find where she could park her food truck long term. Other places were too expensive or didn’t work out with permits or available space. Lara is friends with the owner of the neveria and they allowed her to get settled in front of the store.
Lara aspires to move her restaurant from her rented truck to a permanent location as a fondita, a quick-serve counter that’s very common in Chihuahua.
Alvariza chose to sell empanadas and Latin sandwiches because they’re easy to manage. Most of the product can be pre-prepared and frozen so there’s not much loss with wasted food. But it’s still a dream of his to open another restaurant and bring the experience of a countryside Uruguayan barbecue to Colorado.
Type of story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. To read more about why you can trust the journalism of Rocky Mountain PBS, please visit our editorial standards and practices page.
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. To read more about why you can trust the journalism of Rocky Mountain PBS, please visit our editorial standards and practices page.