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Three years ago, Cindy Valderrama and her husband Roberto launched a Venezuelan catering company based out of Mountain View. Since then, the couple has traveled up and down the Peninsula selling traditional Venezuelan foods at farmers markets, but they’ve never had the opportunity to serve customers in Mountain View until now.
“This is my dream to be in the community, making food so close to home,” Valderrama said.
Valderrama is cooking and serving Venezuelan fare at Ava’s Downtown Market and Deli in Mountain View for the month of July, along with several other women who are sharing their family recipes from different Latin American countries.
Last year, the women came together to participate in a workforce development initiative of Reach Silicon Valley called the “mompreneurs” that was funded by a city grant, in partnership with the Los Altos Mountain View Community Foundation.
The goal of the program has been to help underserved immigrant women gain the necessary skills to start their own food service businesses, with a focus on catering, pop-ups and home-based sales.
There is a cohort of about 22 women, referred to as La Colectiva, who are participating in the program and have been certified in managerial food safe handling. But they have struggled to gain access to one basic resource in the food industry: a commercial kitchen.
The women in La Colectiva can’t run big food operations from their homes, given the regulations of their housing situation. Valderrama travels to San Jose to use a commercial kitchen, but the distance is too prohibitive for most women as they don’t have vehicles to make the trip or transport food and other supplies.
“This is the beauty of this local (place),” said Malia Pires, executive director of Reach Silicon Valley, noting that Ava’s Market is within walking distance of the women’s homes.
The arrangement came together rather quickly, Pires said. It emerged from a collaboration with the Creative Collective of Silicon Valley, a women-owned start up that previously launched World Kitchen at Ava’s Market in April.
Similar to La Colectiva, the women involved in the creation of World Kitchen have international backgrounds and enjoy cooking, although their circumstances are a bit different as they came to the U.S. with husbands who have well-paying jobs. The women have returned to their home countries for the month of July, leaving an opening at Ava’s Market.
La Colectiva jumped at the chance to fill in the gap, with the blessing of Juan Origel, owner of the store.
“It’s an opportunity to use the equipment, space and resources that they don’t have,” Origel said, noting that this is how people get a foothold in food retail.
While the opportunity came quickly, La Colectiva has been training for this moment for months; they have sourced their products and are creating dishes from their home countries, with five women taking the lead and another five helping with the prep work at Ava’s kitchen.
The “pop-up cocina” serves Venezuelan, Mexican, Guatemalan and Salvadoran fare on select days of the week, and has set aside Wednesdays as birria day, a popular food option that sold out last week when it was offered. The dish, made with shredded beef, is served in a few different styles as tacos with a dipping sauce, a ramen bowl and a plate with rice, beans and tortilla.
The meals cost between about $15 and $21, with $18 being the average cost, a price point that is on par with surrounding businesses, according to Pires.
While each day is associated with a particular food theme headed by a single woman, the entire operation is working together in community. Valderrama, who has the most experience in retail, has taken the other women under her wing, Pires said, sharing her knowledge of marketing and offering advice on how to design posters and structure menus.
Similarly, other women who are not overseeing the menus are helping with prep work and working behind the scenes, along with some husbands.
For Valderrama, the experience is particularly meaningful, as it is the first time that she has been able to serve Mountain View customers the dishes that she used to make every day at home in Venezuela. “The experience is not real for me,” she said, while taking a lunch order from Mountain View Mayor Pat Showalter last week.
Bringing different cultures and communities together is a big goal of the pop-up cocina, Pires said. “We really are encouraging ‘shop local, eat local, support local.’ There’s just a lot of value having your local grocery store and your local residents working together and supporting each other,” she added.
The pop-up cocina is open every day, except Tuesdays, for the month of July during lunch and dinner hours, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Ava’s Downtown Market and Deli, located at 340 Castro St. in Mountain View.