Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Mercedes Rojas. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Mercedes, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today One of the toughest parts of scaling a business is maintaining quality as you grow. How have you managed to maintain quality? Any stories or advice?

Maintaining quality in this business is something that you never stop working on. In our case. Working multiple markets at once we are constantly working on ways to simplify things without hurting the integrity of the product.
Making sure that the cook and cashier have the essentials they need and the proper training so that they can manage in case of any hiccups.
But these are things that we have been able to achieve with time and a lot of difficult situations.
I remember when we first opened… I was making masa at the stand to order basically. Frying a couple of plantains at a time. Heating up food to order.
It was a nightmare when we got busy. The arepas were not looking good.
After that very first day we started making moves towards achieving quality control.
One of our main focuses is that everything is seasoned before the market to ensure that all locations have the same tasty arepas :)
Our team loves the arepas! This feels incredible but also plays a big role on maintaining quality because they feel proud of the product they are putting out.
But I think the best advice from me would be to always be on the lookout for things to Improve your operation and this instantly will improve the quality of the business.
Also to listen to your audience and your team!

Mercedes, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I always dreamt about selling arepas for a living and one day my brother and I were in our two bedroom apartment and I asked him if he would do an arepa pop up with me at the farmers market. He said yes! And then he came up with the name “The Arepa Stand” which I loved right away!
We struggled our way into our first market day and had a super successful day! We did not serve the most ideal arepas that day…. It was busy and it was hard!. But we knew we had a product that could become something super special!
The last few years have been a blessing. Being able to feed so many people and get to know them. Make new friends. Build our brand, improve recipes, understand our finances and so many things… We are so proud of all of it.
And there is so much more to come :)

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Zeus, (my brother and business partner) has always had an eye for marketing and making things look very unique and cool. He is the one behind the arepa stand always having beautiful pictures, cool arepa names and branding,
I think the names of the arepas were key to connect with a larger audience.
Also, we love our brand and we want to make sure it shows on our social media platform.
Making the brand inclusive!
Advice…
Make sure your social media is constantly evolving.

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

When COVID-19 happened. All the markets shut down. Except one. But no food allowed (only pre packaged). We figured out a way of selling our product frozen and making instagram videos for our customers with steps of how to build an arepa. We could only sell those once a week and it was not enough income to support our continuing expenses (kitchen rent, trucks, etc)
So, With a couple of other business owners, a baker and a barista we rented a food truck and started to sell our goods anywhere we could.
We were never really successful during those times, like just enough. But even with all the difficulties and the slow days we kept going out with the best intentions.
Our customers that had been with us through our first year of business were the ones who kept us afloat, Buying the frozen arepas and fillings was not the same as getting them fresh. But they still showed up and supported us until we made our way back.
While dealing with all the new COVID rules for businesses, permits and what not. We took that time to also work on our brand and we took this “re-opening” as a second chance to make things more efficient in our operation.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thearepastnd.com
• Instagram: Thearepastand
• Facebook: The arepa stand
• Yelp: The arepa stand

Image Credits
Zeus Ferrini