On November 19th, 2009 Arepa Café is open to the public.
The turn out was really fantastic on the opening night, we served 150 people in 3 hours.
Thank you all for the support!
Since then, we have been opened six days a week experiencing an interesting response from the general public, Venezuelans cheering the accomplishment; and Torontonians curious with the new addition to Queen Street West.
From Dec 01, Arepa's hours of operation are:
Monday, Tuesday 10 am - 7 pm
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday 10 am - 9 pm
Sunday 11 am - 6 pm
Come over and try our delicious arepas, cachapas, tequeños, and desserts.
All very nutritional and healthy.
We are located on 490 Queen Street West, Toronto
Photos by:
Viviana Varela
Enrique Tezpa
☛Arepa Cafe Store Front
490 Queen Street West, Toronto
Design Team:
Victor Pastore
Eduardo Lee
Allan Ryan
☛Arepa Café founder Eduardo Lee and partner Marc Lukacs got together with Chef Carlos Fuenmayor to reaffirm a great connection and excellent team work at the Brick Works Picnic showcasing Sabrosito.
The picnic was a fundraising event in support of Evergreen and Slow Food Toronto.
"The theme of this year's Picnic was " locally global" in recognition of the many cultural groups from around the world who make Toronto their home and enrich the city through their diverse food traditions. Connecting the global palate using foods grown locally is a wonderful opportunity to bring environmental and cultural traditions together, and in the case of the Picnic, into a delicious mouthful." www.evergreen.ca
Sabrosito served a delicious organic Delicato Squash Stew with locally made Queso Fresco, topped with a siqui-siqui sauce.
Arepa Café team is proud to participate with chef Sabrosito, creating a network within Toronto's culinary experts, and supporting events like this towards our integration in the city's gastronomy.
☛The event at St. Andrew's Farmers Market left us with a wonderful feeling of community.
Meeting neighbors reaffirmed the potential of our chosen location for Arepa Café at 490 Queen Street West.
The people around the M5V area of downtown Toronto welcomed our ideas and flavours with an intelligent smile.
We thank your support, and we are eager to serve AREPAS to you all.
Here are some photos of the event, where we served cachapas con queso y albahaca (fresh corn pancakes with fresco cheese and basil) deliciously made by Sabrosito.
The corn was donated by Sandra and John Paul Mooney from Godelie Family Farm.
☛Located in the parking lot at the corner of Adelaide Street West and Maud Street, every Saturday from June 1st to October 31st, from 9 A.M. to 1 P.M., you will find the HISTORIC ST. ANDREW’S FARMER’S MARKET.
Saturday September 26th AREPA CAFE consultant chef Carlos Fuenmayor from Sabrosito will be making free sample CACHAPAS (Fresh Corn Pancakes) with Queso Fresco and Basil at the market. We will have Arepa Café t-shirts for sale with lots of enthusiasm embracing our store opening soon at 490 Queen Street West.
Come and enjoy our delicious dish prepared with local products.
The St. Andres's Market was started in 1837 and is known as Toronto's third public market after the St. Lawrence Market (circa 1803) and the St. Patrick's Market (circa 1836)
The uniqueness of this market is that the product is provided by real farmers. Each week enjoy local fruit, vegetables, honey, flowers, local musicians and amazing chefs. Visit a living part of Toronto's historical part, and welcome Arepa Café's involvement with its community.
The place of Arepas in T.O.
☛490 Queen Street West is our new home, located in the heart of downtown Toronto is our address from SEP 01, 2009. We purchased a coffee shop business operating there until the end of August. The store will be close for renovations, hopefully for about two months.
It took us about six months to encounter the right location with the right conditions. We are excited to have found it, and ready to start our venture with the business of arepas in Toronto.
Stay tune, the opening process will be documented in here for you to follow. Thanks for your support and don't forget to tell a friend about us.
Arepa Café, Inc.
venezuelan urbanity
490 QSW, Toronto
☛On August 22nd 2009, Venezuelans celebrated the summer by organizing a picnic for its community and the general public, it took place at Mel Latsman Square, North York. The picnic event was made real by the people of 'Fundación Cultural Alma Llanera'; organization founded in 2003, and supporters of talent, tradition, and culture from Venezuela.
Arepa Café team assisted the event and met a vibrant community working and living in the city of Toronto, we talked with our fellow venezuelans and introduced them to the arepa plan, we also were approached by some of the people asking about our location, welcoming the idea and expressing their support. We were happy to inform our progress and make new friends.
The group tasted some of the foods being sold, only to be delighted. The event was busy and happy with Venezuelans feeling at home, and visitors all excited about the splash of culture. They where eager to try the tasty dishes of our nation like: corn cachapas, golfeados con queso, tequeños, chicha, parrilla con yuca y guasacaca, cachitos among so much more, while the bands play in the open amphitheater. Vendors and artists placed in an urban setting all together to celebrate our heritage.
Arepa Café is a Venezuelan inspired project, and it is grateful to participate, contributing to the enjoyment of our community, and helping showcase our traditions.
Love to eat and run (bike)
by Jerry Waese.
Location is one the most important elements for a successful restaurant.
So far, we have invested four months on finding the right location for Arepa Café in the city of Toronto, and we agree with what we keep reading from experienced owners:
"The real statement is the right location, right location, right location. Naturally, food preparation, ambiance, service, price and convivial attitude of the staff are all important equal elements in the equation of success that should all be weighed equally, but the right location is more important and holds more weight in the future success of a profitable restaurant."It is a long, and complex process to find the right location, and the right landlord. It also can be very quick and simple, it depends on luck and resources. In our case, there have been three potential locations on the desk with signed offers that has not materialized, but they have provided experience, and growth to our business.
The first offer was for a cute little place on Baldwin Street (location # 1), then we put a second offer on College Street (location # 2), and the third went for a beautiful place on Queen Street West (location # 3). While negotiating the lease on the first and third locations, other offers came to the game and win the places over ours, the second it was our decision to move on.
These are the three try-outs so far:
A new location is on the sight, again around College street, just west of Bathurst. Since the beginning, we imagine Arepa Café to be a relaxed and trendy place with healthy food for students and younger crowds. The closer to colleges, universities, offices on a high traffic street of pedestrians and cars would make our best location.
A solid business plan opens doors to be considered as a good tenant, the complexity of a restaurant project usually makes Landlords turn into simpler projects like offices, and retail stores. The better organized you present yourself the better location and landlord you will get. It has been challenging the understanding of commercial real state in Toronto.
It is difficult to find, but less difficult than creating a good idea, and putting together a business plan to find a loan for implementation. Our search continues...
Thanks for you support, and keep following our 'restaurant opening' process.
Han pasado casi doce meses desde la introducción de nuestra arepa a algunos torontonias, colégas y amigos que tuvieron la oportunidad de probar las primeras.
It has been almost twelve months since introducing our arepas to some few torontonias, colleagues and friends had the opportunity to taste our first arepas.
Desde ese dia el trabajo ha sido arduo, hemos creado Arepa Café, Inc., un documento explicando la idea del negocio, y la metodologia para su creación e implementación. Luego de revisiones y asesorias cocluimos con el documento de negocio, el cual ha ayudado a visualizar el proyecto en general.
Since then, we have done lots of work creating Arepa Café, Inc., a document explaining the process to create and to operate our business of arepas, after several revisions and research the result is an informative guide illustrating Arepa Café, it has helped to visualize the big picture.
Recorrimos el centro de la ciudad de Toronto en busqueda de un local comercial para implementar el proyecto. Se ha creado una imagen gráfica para presentar el producto al público, el logo. Se han acumulado proveedores, contratistas y asesores como base inicial en el comienzo de la operación.
We searched commercial locations in downtown Toronto, we created a graphic image to present the product to the public, the logo, we accumulated suppliers, contractors, and advisors as a start of the operation.
...y cocinamos las ricas recetas de nuestro menú.
...and we cook the delicious recipes in our menu.
On April 15th, 2009 AREPA CAFE is a corporation.
The business of arepas in Toronto.
A Venezuelan inspired arepera in Toronto.
Thanks for your support!
