We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Daniel & Kristina Mercedes. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Daniel & Kristina below.

Daniel & Kristina , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?

The idea for making homemade empanadas to sell came partly from my grandmother and partly from my father. My Grandmothers empanadas were what brought my family together. As kids, helping her to fold and press them and seeing my family come together to sit and enjoy them. My Father has been an entrepreneur his entire life. Growing up, I watched him build multiple successful businesses. From him I learned that if you work hard, anything is possible. I knew that offering a wide variety of unique homemade empanadas would be successful as no one else offered this.

Daniel & Kristina , 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?

We are a family owned and operated food trailer in Central Florida. We specialize in a wide variety of unique homemade empanadas. We decided to start a food truck business after having much success selling door to door. It was our seasoning and that our empanadas were stuffed full that made us well known in Orlando. From there we knew that we could share this with more areas if we expanded into a food truck. Since starting two years ago, we have purchased a second food truck and are franchising our third. We are now able to give back to our community, which is something we feel very strong about. We choose three charities a year to donate our time and food to.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

Our business started with me selling 20-30 empanadas a day door to door for about 3 years as a side hustle. Then in 2019 I met my wife and spent another year convincing her to quit her successful job to help us grow the empanada business. Once she was on board, we bought our very first trailer and it had nothing that we needed. We didn’t even know at the time what we needed! It took us about 6 months of building the trailer to meet all the states requirements. This was a challenge as there is no manual on what is expected from food truck owners, you learn as you go. Once we were on the road, we now had the challenge of where to park?! We couldn’t drive around door to door anymore, we needed one place to park and sell our brand. We started at a local gas station, sitting there for 6 hours a day and making no money. We knew this wasnt going to be the path for us so we started researching other options and were able to book a couple large events. From there we built a following and were able to book catering jobs as well. We now book out a couple months in advance and have since been able to buy a second trailer and are franchising our third.

How’d you meet your business partner?

My cofounder and business partner is my wife. We actually met on a dating site! She was already managing for a large corporation and very happy in her career. I was working different odd jobs and making my empanadas to sell locally on the side. After she saw the possibilities in my business, we joined forces to build onto it together. This was the best decision either of us could make. We both bring to the table something the other doesn’t. With this, we have created a strong successful business that will continue to grow and be a legacy for our children.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thedancingempanada.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedancingempanada/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedancingempanada/
• Other: tiktok.com/thedancingempanada