We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Isis Arrieta-Dennis. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Isis below.

Isis, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you share a customer success story with us?

The Arepa Place specializes in a Colombian and Venezuelan dish known as arepas. We were founded in Cincinnati in 2016 by owner, Isis Arrieta-Dennis, who is originally from Colombia. She and her mother (also named Isis) are responsible for all the recipes. After more than two years of using Findlay Kitchen and serving food on the weekends from a pop-up tent, we opened our first brick-and-mortar at Findlay Market in October 2018. In 2022, we opened a location in Wyoming OH.

We have immense passion for the cuisine that we create and the experiences that are shared over food. We love serving the people of the Greater Cincinnati area, and we hope everyone enjoys our authentic Colombian dishes.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

My name is Isis Arrieta-Dennis, and I am the owner of The Arepa Place, a Colombian restaurant with two locations in Cincinnati, Ohio. The restaurant specializes in stuffed arepas and empanadas. I am an Afro-Colombian woman who has lived in the United States for over 15 years.

I have always celebrated my cultural identity through food. In fact, my passion for cooking blossomed once I started preparing Colombian dishes for friends and acquaintances as a way to share my culture. This naturally served as motivation to officially start my business in the spring of 2016. With little restaurant experience, I decided it was best to start slowly and ease my way into the industry. I was fortunate to find Findlay Kitchen, an incubator kitchen in Over the Rhine, Cincinnati where I was able rent equipment and storage space. After preparing the food at Findlay Kitchen, I then sold my dishes from a pop-up tent on the weekends at Findlay Market, local events, and festivals. With help from both my mother and husband, we served food this way for over two years as a way to gain experience and build a customer base before finally opening a brick-and-mortar at Findlay Market in the fall of 2018.

In March 2022, I also opened a restaurant in Wyoming, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati.

My objective is to provide the people of The Greater Cincinnati area with an enjoyable, Colombian dining experience. And we make the stuffed arepas the traditional way! First, we boil and grind the corn. After kneading the dough, we make the patties that are then grilled. Lastly, the arepa is cut open and filled with mozzarella cheese, black beans, fried plantains, shredded steak, chorizo, and/or chicken. We also serve delicious empanadas made from freshly ground corn.

Owning a business based on a cultural product that forms a significant part of my identity is not only motivating, but also empowering. My family is also a huge motivating factor for me. My mother, who is a now US resident, helps tremendously with the business, and in fact, many of the restaurant’s recipes are hers. She has sacrificed so much for her children, and I want to make her proud. Above all, I hope to serve as an example of a strong, intelligent, and successful woman for my son and daughter.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

The first three months of 2020 were strong, and I was looking forward to what I thought was going to be a banner year. In addition to the storefront, I had caterings and events lined up for almost every weekend in the spring and summer. Of course, that all came crashing down with the arrival of the pandemic. In April, I had to temporarily let all my employees go, and my husband helped me serve lunch only for about a month. In other words, the two of us alone ran the restaurant. Eventually, we received a PPP loan with which I rehired almost all of my employees, and I also received a few small grants that were used to help pay rent and utilities. In the end, 2020 sales dropped significantly, and my business lost money for the first time.

Managing the pandemic, therefore, was very difficult, but we found a way to survive by making use of relief funds and by finding ways to adapt. For example: 1) we started taking online orders; 2) we began using DoorDash as a third-party delivery service; and 3) we began to make and sell a lot more of our packaged products. My Findlay Market storefront also has a mini-market that offers customers a wide variety of Latin American packaged products, and I have used this space as a way to package and sell some of my own dry and frozen products such as plain arepas, cheese arepas, empanadas, freshly made salsas, and bags of plantain chips.

In the end, I believe my business came out stronger from the pandemic because of the ways in which we were forced to adapt and grow.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

My business partner is my husband, who is originally from Ohio. We met in 2004 when he was studying in Colombia, and in 2007 we married in the United States. Early on, he recognized my entrepreneurial talents, and he always encourage me to pursue my dream of owning my own business. For some, having a spouse as a business partner might seem unappealing, however, we make a great team.

Again, though my mother is not a business partner per se, her contributions to my business have been essential to our success. She is a wonderful cook, and her culinary knowledge regarding Colombian dishes has been invaluable.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://arepaplace.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arepaplace/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/arepaplace/

Image Credits
Amy Smethurst