Pupusas on the griddle at La Salvi.
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By Natalia Otero
Maria Henriquez, 44, and Ashley Henriquez, 21, are mother and daughter and also a great team. Together they operate La Salvi, a pop-up Salvadoran restaurant located in The Rochester Commissary, a space for food ventures in Rochester, New York. They opened on April 8.
Maria y Ashley Enriquez
They serve Salvadoran food, every Wednesday from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm. Their specialty: Pupusa, a thick corn tortilla filled with mozzarella cheese and chicharron. It sounds simple, but to make it requires great skill and technique. For this reason, María dedicates herself to cooking them, as she is the expert. She cooks the chicharrón for more than three hours, and the cheese must be separated by hand, which takes time.
Before opening La Salvi, Maria worked for restaurants, mostly Mexican or Puerto Rican (which are plentiful in the area), but people who knew her and tasted her delicious food insisted that she open her own.
If Maria is the great cook, Ashley is the business expert. This December she will finish her studies at St. John Fisher University. The knowledge she acquired during her years of study, along with her own talent, have contributed to La Salvi. Ashley is in charge of managing the business, coordinating logistics and making sure the numbers work in their favor.
In the business plan Ashley has made for her mother, she aspires for La Salvi to expand and dreams of it becoming a franchise. She sees the potential since there is no competition from other Salvadoran franchise restaurants in the United States.
In the process of building this project, Maria and Ashley have discovered that there is a huge Salvadoran and non-Salvadoran community that likes Salvadoran food. Pupusas are hard to find, but, the love for this product is such that people go all the way to Toronto or New York to get them. That's why La Salvi comes with great value and little competition.
Staying Motivated
The contribution of each is essential and it is thanks to the union of both forces that they have managed with ease (although this does not mean that there have been no challenges) to build a stable clientele.
“There have been difficult times when we have wanted to stop. It's just the two of us and sometimes it's hard. Sure, sometimes we have misunderstandings, but, at the end of the day, she's my mom and we always try to meet in the middle,” Ashley says.
The menu at La Salvi
At the moment, the Pop Up model at La Comisaría works very well for them, as it doesn't require a lot of overhead, they have a place to store their equipment and, as they build a more robust community of customers, it's perfect for them.
Both Maria and her daughter discovered, thanks to a professor at the university Ashley attends who connected them with The Commissary, that there was this Pop Up model that supports entrepreneurs who don't have a lot of capital to invest and risk. Seeing that they have grown quickly, Ashley has a vision of a rich and abundant future for La Salvi, and the courage and wisdom it takes to make it happen.
“Our goal in 2025 is to have our own place. We've been doing so well that people are asking us to be open on weekends. If we can do this, my mom won't have to work so hard, physically submitting herself, but could have employees that she could teach and manage.” As she explains, “the goal of an entrepreneur is not to work yourself to death, but to not work so much, but to be on top of the business.”
Ashley realizes that marketing is crucial to achieving this goal. When you have a good brand image and communication with the community, the rest usually comes more easily.
It is true that so far they are starting a long road that requires a lot of patience and endurance, and Ashley is very clear about this. According to her, the key for them not to lose the strength they started with at this point is to keep motivation in mind.
“All the people who have come, they insist that we open a store. They ask us to serve food seven days a week, and on weekends,” she says.
Another virtue that Ashley considers very important to keep in mind when setting up a restaurant business is not to have negative thoughts that devalue the process and the effort.
This, in a way, is linked to the importance of not lowering prices out of fear. As he explains, the price of food varies often, and always increases. For example, cheese has gone up $10 this month.
“When food goes up we have to keep that in mind and know that we offer the highest quality ingredients,” she explains. “There are other ways to offer discounts that don't lead to losing money, such as doing college specials, like we did in September, or one for Thanksgiving.”
Keeping this in mind means valuing the quality they offer and the work time invested. And, it doesn't stop customers from buying, because what they offer is quality food.
“The business has potential, it can be a franchise. There is no stopping, you can always do more, you can grow and grow. I will always be there for her, and I know my brothers and my dad will be there for her. But, I want this to be for her because it was always her dream,” Ashley says.
Natalia Otero is a regular writer for el Restaurante.
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