How A Shared Love Of Food Helped Create Halifax’s Most Authentic Chilean Empanadas
HALIFAX – Alejandro Riquelme and Anne You just wanted some empanadas. With real Chilean flavours, like they used to eat back in Chile.
Riquelme and You have been living in Halifax for about two years. And sure, you can get empanadas in the city, but not with “a real, Chilean taste.”
So not long ago Riquelme, who is a cook by trade, decided to make some.
Initially, the plan was to share them with friends and family. But after You and Riquelme offered the empanadas for sale on a Facebook group for South Americans living in Halifax, they suddenly found themselves with a business.
Riquelme still remembers the decision to post on the Facebook group. He thought maybe someone might be interested. You thought they might sell a dozen. But almost as soon as they posted, requests began to flood in. Before long, they had about 70 orders.
“It was something we just didn’t expect, so of course we weren’t prepared,” You remembers.
“I stayed up all night making the dough, rolling the dough, making the filling, folding all the empanadas, filing them. It was a really hard weekend, but it was amazing,” Riquelme says.
The response was pretty good as well. Apparently, Chileans in Halifax had been sorely missing authentic flavours from their home country. And Riquelme had devliered.
With that, Buena Pie Co. was born.
A Little Help From Reditt
Although they started hot, things might not have taken off so quickly for Buena Pie Co. In fact, after the surprising debut, things looked like they might slow down.
A week after their big flood of orders You was lamenting to a friend they had only received a handful of requests for the upcoming weekend.
She says she’d accepted things would be slower and told herself they’d make the half dozen empanadas and then just relax. But that didn’t happen.
“On Friday I just started seeing more and more followers and more and more orders. And I had no clue where they were coming from. I was thinking, I don’t know who these people are. Like, we literally had 50 followers on an Instagram account we made a week ago,” You said.
As it turns out, Anne’s friend had given Buena Pie a shoutout on the /r/Halifax subreddit and people were taking notice.
‘Empanadas, Empanadas Empanadas, Empanadas, Empanadas’
Fast forward a few weeks and Beuna Pie has been fielding more orders every week, without a dime spent on marketing, or even a functioning website.
You and Riquelme take orders through Instagram during the week and customers can pick up their empanadas at a set time on the weekend.
Last weekend, they put together about 150 empanadas—all still made by hand.
“This last couple of weeks my life has just been preparing during the week for the weekend. And then the weekend is like, empanadas, empanadas empanadas, empanadas, empanadas,” Riquelme says.
On Monday, he sleeps. Then from Tuesday to Friday, he prepares for the next batch of orders: doing inventory, buying groceries, and sourcing ingredients.
The operation has grown enough that Buena Pie Co has moved to a community kitchen in Halifax’s North End. They’ve even invested in a few minor conveniences, like an onion chopper.
But Riquelme says the hand-made aspect of the process remains vital.
“If we make a big effort and for some reason, things don’t turn out well, okay, I’m good with that. I can say we tried, we did our best,” he says. “What I don’t want to do is to sacrifice flavour, sacrifice the essence of what a good, well-done empanada is just to make some money.”
“With the amount of work this business means, I just don’t think it’s worth it. I would rather just work in another kitchen making money.”
Like If Your Own Grandma Made It
Riquelme says he finds deep meaning in food and tries to imbue every empanada he makes with love.
“This is literally my grandma’s recipe. So you’re hopefully going to get exactly the same feeling—the same taste, the same flavours as you would from your grandma if she [wanted to show you] her appreciation through food.”
You shares that same deep appreciation for food, so it’s not surprising the couple is together because of it.
You and Riquelme met in Chile. You, who’s from Toronto, fell in love with a seaside town called El Paraiso while travelling. To extend her stay she volunteered in a local restaurant where Riquelme happened to be the cook.
“He made me cut so many onions,” You recalls with a laugh. “I just remember cutting all these onions and thinking he could do this in a fraction of the time.”
However, as Riquelme taught You how to work in a kitchen, and she shared her favourite dishes from her Korean parents, they grew closer.
They started talking about all kinds of things; they visited the city together. You ended up staying for years.
Eventually, her work visa in Chile ended and Riquelme’s Canadian work visa came through and the couple decided to move to Halifax to put down roots.
They’ve lived in the for city about two years.
Taking It One Week At A Time
In only a handful of weeks, without a marketing budget or a website (You’s day job is in marketing and she’s been promoting through organic channels), Buena Pie Co. has grown about as much as it can without some bigger changes.
Ask You and Riquelme where they see the business in a year and they fall silent.
“When you said a year, I had a moment. I have not even thought out that far,” You says, pursing her lips. For now, she says, they are still taking things one week at a time.
“I think for us it’s really important to enjoy all of the moments. There have been really challenging moments and sad and frustrating moments. But there’s also been really great moments and new experiences,” she says.
Riquelme agrees, saying he wants to continue to share experiences, and a love of food, with his customers. He also says there are more Chilean flavours he wants to show Haligonians and he’s excited about that opportunity if things keep going well.
You pipes in that they might even consider a shop if demand keeps growing “but that’s like 7,000 steps down the road.”
Trevor Nichols is a staff writer with Huddle in Halifax. Send him an e-mail with your story suggestions: [email protected].