Explore Stephanie and Keneddy's journey in the Food Retail Industry

Unstoppable. – Keneddy

Thinking about the word ‘rootless’ and what that means to me is interesting. I’ve always felt like I have had roots. I know my roots very well, but in the U.S., I don’t have roots. So, my mom came from Ecuador and my dad came from Portugal and they met here in the US. I always felt like my roots were elsewhere, but I was very connected to them. I was always talking to my family in Ecuador and my family in Portugal. I’ve visited Ecuador many times in my youth but I never fully connected to the U.S. until I started going to school here and meeting people, having friends and slowly I felt like the roots developed over time for sure. – Stephanie

Well, I grew up in the Dominican Republic in Santo Domingo. Since I was born till I was 12 years old, I used to live in a very dangerous neighborhood where it was very difficult to get around. My family decided to move out of that neighborhood and we went to a safer area. So, most of my life I grew up with my grandma. She used to love to cook and we used to cook together. My mom was always away because she used to work in casinos, cruises so most of the time I was with my grandma and we would just spend the time cooking. Later on, when I was ten, I used to say that I loved cooking and that’s what I was going to do. I love eating too. I just kept cooking my own meals since I was like 12 and my mom was always supportive of that. Then, my mom moved here in the US for a little bit and she kind of arranged everything. We came here, I went to the “Le Cordon Bleu” culinary school and started working in different places and now we’re “The Nada Cart”. – Keneddy

I was born here, but my parents are both immigrated to the US, my mom from a middle class family in Ecuador and my dad from a rural village in Portugal. They met and they were essentially the only ones here, everyone else was back in their countries. Luckily, they started working and we eventually had the privilege to visit those countries, get connected with our families and meet everyone but it took time. It took time for them to develop friendships here in the U.S. It took time for them to figure out where we were going to live for the rest of our lives or what they were going to do for work. I remember my dad used to work at a bakery. He used to work at JJ Nissen, which is a big bread company. We would go visit him at the factory and he would give us tours where you had to wear a little hairnet. He did that for a long time but his jobs have always kind of changed. He never really had one consistent career path. Growing up, my mom at first would stay at home and take care of my sister and I, which was great but eventually, things got a little difficult and she had to go to work. She started working as a lunch lady at my elementary school, which was crazy. Everyone loved her because she was super fun and would sing like Spanish songs to the kids, really bringing who she was and what her background was to the school. So, it was weird that my mom was a lunch lady, it was still kind of fun because everyone knew her and really liked her. Growing up, I really saw my family go through a lot of stages. Throughout that time we learned how to survive in this country, basically by working all the time. That’s kind of where I grew up and started. – Stephanie

While I was going to school, I would work during the summers and I would come back. I went to school in Worcester at Clark University, (shoutout to the Clarkies) and I would come home during the summer to work. I got a job at a Portuguese restaurant called “The Tosca” in Kendall Square. I was a hostess there and it just so happens that Kennedy was a server there. So, we met working at this restaurant. We had a lot of good times there. One thing led to another and eventually he got me another job, another summer at a French restaurant. So, we kind of just stayed in touch throughout that time. He would come visit me at school, and we would party, I would introduce him to friends and it was always a good time. So that’s how we ended up meeting. – Stephanie

I studied Psychology as a bachelors and then did a master’s in Business. – Stephanie

The idea came during one of the parties that I had at my place. I think we were talking about what we were doing for work and all that stuff and how we were feeling about it and she kind of brought the idea about a cart. She said she thought having a cart would be nice. Then I don’t remember how empanadas came by, but somehow we were talking about food because I always do barbecues and stuff. So my empanadas came up and I just love empanadas. I grew up eating empanadas every day. If there is something that I know we can do better here, it’s empanadas. I told her “Let’s do it” and she told me she already had the name picked “The Nada Cart” and I thought it was cool. – Keneddy

Well, the beginning was like, all right, so Stephanie already had a little bit of the marketing background, and I already had management in the food industry. So it was kind of like it somehow just kind of came together and I was like, that’s perfect. Yeah, you take care of the marketing. I took care of the kitchen. I started like a food truck kind of business plan that I was working on and, and then we’re kind of just like, sort of started building our own and from scratch for “The Nada Cart”. – Keneddy

Well, to be honest, I mean, at this point, I wish we had been a little better prepared to start a business. We kind of just said “Let’s do it”. We were so excited,  we clinked glasses and then we didn’t know where to start. I mean, neither of us had ever really started a business before. I think Kennedy was the first one to suggest that we needed a mentor, someone to ask questions to and kind of guide us. So, he went to the SBA (Small Business Administration) and signed us up. We were paired with a mentor there. – Stephanie

Then, they interview you and they match you to a mentor that is related to what you’re trying to do. – Keneddy

So we got matched with the mentor and at this point, I think we were still both working and trying to do both things at once. We started making them in Kennedy’s kitchen. We didn’t have anywhere else to be. Eventually he got over the smell of the frying. – Stephanie

I mean, when you’re frying 200 empanadas a day, the house smells like oil. For the first event we had we wanted to invite our closest friends just to start it and try it out, take a couple of pictures here and there. We were making around 300 empanadas, kind of appetizer size. I was using this tiny pasta machine to make the dough and everything by hand. So, it was like one disk every like 5 minutes. – Keneddy

We felt great, people loved them. They thought this was a good idea. We made sauces, we made the empanadas, and everyone was just saying the dough was perfect, it was crispy. I remember one of my friends was wondering about how she could have never tried avocado crema before in her life, like, that’s what she was missing. We don’t offer that anymore, but it was a crowd pleaser. It was great. – Stephanie

However, COVID happened. So, I already left my job and at that time, I thought it was going to take a couple of months and then we’re going to go back to it, as did everybody because the plan was to be at parties and events and stuff like that. The cart was supposed to go in during winter and then get ready for summer. Obviously, that didn’t happen. Then it took another year and a half for us to actually get started. – Keneddy

Throughout that time, once they kind of started lifting some of the restrictions we had, we set up a Google form. We had friends and family that were ordering through the Google form, we did everything manually. They would submit the Google form, we would prep all of the orders on a Friday or Saturday and then we would deliver them all. So, that’s kind of how we were doing things, no contact. People could order from their emails and we did that for a little bit. Obviously that’s not sustainable, you can’t really grow like that, but we made it work until we were able to kind of open up and get into the commercial kitchen. – Stephanie

I think we started selling in March 2021. We’re brand new. It’s perfect. – Stephanie

It’s a little different than a restaurant because in a restaurant you can prep every day and you can replace. So you don’t really need to do a huge batch of anything, basically. So, for the commercial business you kind of had to learn how to bash in and obviously learn how to use the equipment because they’re also bigger. The equipment I use for the dough is probably a little smaller than this table. That was new for me because I was using my little pasta maker. I had to learn how to use everything in a month and a half, get the recipes set to make big batches and all that. – Keneddy

We were both in the kitchen. It was a lot of work. – Stephanie

Well, a working day was definitely more than 8 hours. Most of the days we would start cooking in the morning or at night. Then we were also doing events and the little pop up in the South end. So I would say like 12 hours. – Keneddy

It was a lot of hours. It was a learning experience. I mean, obviously it was just the two of us at first and, you know, we had to both do everything, even the parts that you don’t see. You can cook but then you have to clean everything you use the pots and pans and tables and that takes time as well. You don’t have someone that’s going to do that for you from the beginning, when you’re first starting out. I did want to mention the pop up. So, we started working out of the commercial kitchen and then we had a chance to pop up in the South End on Trenton Street. The manager of the kitchen that we were at had this connection and they asked whether we wanted to do a pop up there. We thought it was great. We did not know we were going to do as well as we did. Boston.com did an article about the pop up before we opened and so many people read it, so many people heard about it. We made a couple hundred empanadas because we thought we were just going to go and start selling. That was not enough. We had to go back to the kitchen after the first day and start making more. I remember I brought my whole family. I told my mom and dad I needed them to make empanadas. – Stephanie

We went from making like ten pounds to making 40 pounds of meat at once. – Keneddy

We’ve just kept at it. The pop up was great because it showed us that the people wanted the empanadas and if we had the opportunity to be selling at a physical location, we’re going to do really well. That location had to shut down for remodeling so we weren’t able to continue there. So that’s kind of when we started doing more events. We started going to breweries, doing pop ups, and then slowly but surely we bought the cart that we now have, which is super exciting because that’s obviously what we wanted from the beginning. Now we are working through the permitting, a lot of it is just that you just have to keep at it because there are a lot of challenges. The permitting is hard, now a lot of systems are still outdated but the cities are catching up. People wonder what an empanada cart is, and what it looks like. Well, there’s never really been one in the city before. Anytime Kennedy’s trying to get a permit, he always calls and says he’s going to call ten times until they pick up the phone. You just got to keep calling. That’s kind of how we’ve grown it. Keneddy has been focusing on cooking and creating new recipes and streamlining our processes so that we’re not spending too much money on labor or kitchen time. Then on the other hand, I’m handling the marketing, I’m trying to connect with people and tell people about the business, otherwise they wouldn’t know. It’s been a long journey with challenges, but we have to just stay persistent. That’s how I feel like we’ve gotten to the place that we are now. – Stephanie

We are now making around 2000 empanadas a week I would say. We currently have three people helping us. – Keneddy

Honestly, it’s people who value food, great value, a well-made meal, something that’s made from scratch, something that’s handmade, something that took time and effort and also people who love Latin American food. There’s a reason that Mexican food is super popular here. Everyone loves rice, beans, meat, and empanadas are not far from that. So we feel that honestly, it’s anyone who does like food, of course, in general, but also wants to connect with that culture. I always think about what empanadas mean to me. They are memorable, they bring me back to when I was younger and I was eating them. My aunt would make them for every holiday and birthday. I would eat one or two and then I would stick them in the microwave to eat for later, so they would disappear. We want to bring people back to those memories that they have of eating certain things. A lot of times our customers will say they had the empanadas in Chile or in Buenos Aires, Argentina and even though these are not from there, they’re still great. So, we love hearing them. We love when people are transported back to that special moment when they first had an empanada. – Stephanie

We want to keep the carts we want to have in Boston. We also are planning to have a physical location to do take out and to produce and also possibly wholesale. – Keneddy

I feel like we push each other, we complement each other. Like I’m always the one who wants to keep going, keep evolving, moving, try doing this or that and everyone encourages me to look at the details and plan. So we both come together and push each other to just keep going. – Keneddy

I definitely dedicate time to it and don’t overlook it. Branding and telling your story and formulating who you are is so important to a business, especially when you’re just starting out. If you don’t share it with people, then like I said earlier, no one’s going to know you’re there. You might have the best product/service, but if you aren’t communicating with people, networking with people, then it’s going to get lost or forgotten. So definitely that and then, make it memorable, do something that’s out of the norm. With “The Nada Cart” people sometimes are surprised because ‘nada’ means nothing. Yeah, it means nothing but we liked how it sounded. Originally it was something like ‘nothing but empanadas which was cool, because we were only going to do empanadas. So yeah, I think you should work to make it memorable and share it as much as you can. – Stephanie

Also, look at the numbers, pay attention to the numbers. – Keneddy

There are a lot of challenges. I feel like the number one is getting somebody to help out, labor. – Keneddy

Labor at the moment is difficult. The other one is funding. Coming from our own backgrounds, we don’t have a huge network that we can rely on, whether it’s friends or family. So we definitely look at receiving grants or seeing if we can find ways to fund our vision. Part of it is facilities, along with the funding. How do you make a hundred thousand empanadas or how do you keep going and get to a point where you’re making large volumes? I’m thinking about this because we recently did an order for the US Open. It was huge. We met with them and they wanted us to make empanadas and asked us how many we could make. Kennedy told them “A lot.” but the truth was we had never made that much. – Stephanie

I just knew we could do it. We got in this zoom interview with them and then we told them the whole idea and what we were doing, the flavors and all that and they liked it. So then we sent a sample to them and they said it was great. We ended up having to make 15,000 empanadas. It took almost a month. So we had to make two deliveries in between because we ran out of space in the freezer.  – Keneddy

We’re at a commercial space with a bunch of other businesses so we took over like half the freezer which was probably a little bigger than this room. – Stephanie

I think both of us relied on our families a lot, especially in the beginning. When you’re first starting out, you don’t know what’s going to be happening the next day. So at first it was only you and me but then you get an order and you need more people, more hands. Kennedy’s mom has helped us out, his sister has helped us. So, it’s great to have people that you can rely on to give you that can give you a hand. I will say, going back to the rootless conversation, friends become your family. We don’t have a ton of family here, but we do have a lot of friends that we’ve made throughout our time living in the U.S. I can’t count on my hands how many of my friends have pitched in, whether it’s to buy empanadas, help us make them, share a post on Instagram. Kennedy’s friends have helped a lot too. We worked with one of his friends recently to paint the trailer and they did an amazing job. They’re artists in Boston. It’s those connections that make you feel like you have roots here and you do have a network that will support you no matter the challenges. -Stephanie

For me, it was a little mix of personal and business. My son is going to Columbia with his mom, so we went to the notary to get some paper signed that I went to to pick up some shrimp for the empanada that we were have. And after that, I went into the commercial kitchen. So from the seaport to pick up the trailer to get everything ready, then trailer back to Cambridge to set it up, get everything ready for an event. – Keneddy

We have our cart. So our cart is on Kendall Square on Tuesdays, Thursday and Fridays every week. So he has a car that pulls it and he brings it over there. our days are really just back and forth. I mean, now that we have some help, we’ve definitely had an opportunity to focus more on writing our business plan, making sure that our finances are in order, making sure our marketing is set up properly. And then a lot of times what we’re doing is just driving back and forth to, the store, to the event, to an office to get a permit, whatever it is, we’re just all over the place. – Stephanie

The permits really take a lot of time and planning because sometimes it’s different from city to city. So depending on where you’re going to be, they might require you to have a fire extinguisher, others might not. So, you always have to stay on top of it. I’m trying to get that trailer license in Boston, and Boston is one of the most difficult cities to get permits for anything. We’re working on that now and it takes a lot of planning and also takes a lot to find people to do the work. because it’s such a tiny kind of market for them that most of them don’t really do any work on trailers or anything like that. So it’s hard to find people to do it and to plan for it so that they can really help me out. Yeah, because it’s not really like a, like I said, blueprint for the whole permit system. – Keneddy

It’s funny because I’m a proponent of learning and trying to make sure that we know how to run the business. So, I’ve been doing a bunch of classes. I’ve had Kennedy sit in on a bunch of classes on “How to Pitch your business” and “The luminary” event that we attended. So “The Nada Cart”is a business that sells homemade empanadas. We sell gourmet empanadas made from scratch to order from a lot of different flavors that we have created. We make them with love for people to enjoy. The biggest thing about the empanadas that we make is that everything is fresh. We make the dough, we make the sauce, we make the fillings, and we want you to enjoy that empanada freshly made out of the fryer. So we don’t want to compromise on flavor, on texture, on the balance between the dough and the filling. We want you to have the perfect empanada. That’s “The Nada Cart”. – Stephanie

Best way is Instagram because we use it a lot, but not at the cart. Our website is also up and running. So we post all of our events there. If you want to see where we are going to be this month, all of the events for August are up. We are on all of the social media platformsTwitter, TikTok, but we don’t use it as much even though Keneddy loves making videos. – Stephanie

Honestly, entrepreneurship is scary. You never know how it’s going to go. A lot of times you leave a full time job where everything is laid out for you neatly and it’s just not like that. There are a lot of hurdles you have to get over, a lot of things that you have to learn. You might have read them in an article on the Internet, but it’s different when it’s real life. If you are interested in being an entrepreneur and you have a good idea that you feel will change people’s lives, go for it. Do it and just don’t be afraid of the unknown because there are always going to be unknowns. You just have to push through it and hopefully find business partners that will compliment you and keep you going. – Stephanie

Never give up. I feel like in that beginning you never feel like you’re ready. So, if you don’t feel like you’re ready, look at the goal, set the milestone and just just go for it, get your head down and then keep going and going. If something comes up, work on it and don’t give up. – Keneddy