Chef Mario Perez said he was always fascinated by the art of cooking since childhood.
“Ever since I can remember, I was always attached to my mother and grandmother because I was the baby of the family,” Perez said. “Whenever they cook, I'm right next to them, watching what they do.”
Perez said he started cooking with his family as he grew up, and that passion led him into the culinary world. Over the past 15 years, he has held various jobs in the industry, including a brief stint with Princess Cruises in Alaska. In late 2023, Perez started Mario Liz Catering out of his home kitchen.
Inspired by stories like Perez's, Evanston Latinos began planning a community commercial kitchen in 2021 to help local entrepreneurs expand their businesses, said Executive Director Rebecca Mendoza.
After receiving a $100,000 grant from the Chicago Regional Food System Foundation in January and conducting additional fundraising efforts, Mendoza said the organization is now renting space to pilot a community kitchen for the first year. He said he has enough funds to do so. She hopes this pilot will serve as a “proof of concept” for further grants and funding in the future.
Originally founded in 2020 To ensure Evanston's Latino community has access to information and resources and to supplement the city's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Evanston's Latino community is providing continued support to the community through projects such as Kitchens. Mr. Mendoza said that the focus was on providing the following.
“That’s from all the people who were preparing meals or selling food during the pandemic,” she said. “Some had been operating in obscurity for a while, but others started giving out food as a way to replace lost income.”
Eduardo Roman Evanston Latinos board members said the nonprofit hopes the kitchen will fill a gap in the support system for local Latino businesses and the community.
In addition to providing a brick-and-mortar commercial kitchen, the space will also connect tenants with other entrepreneurs and community members who could become their first customers, Roman said. We also provide resources to start your business, including creating a brand and website and obtaining the necessary licenses.
“What a lot of people tend to forget about the Latino community is that there's a lot of diversity out there,” Roman said. “Like any other language, one of the common languages is food. There's a wide variety of Latin food… so the idea was to use food as a way to bring people together.”
Roman said the organization has identified several potential locations and is on track to open the kitchen in June.
To support entrepreneurs using the kitchen, Evanston Latinos is also partnering with Lending of Evanston and Northwestern Development, Mendoza said. We are a nonprofit consulting firm run by Northwestern students and primarily work with organizations and businesses in Evanston.
Weinberg's junior, Dana Agbede, LEND's vice president of community outreach, said her organization works to connect entrepreneurs in the pre-commercial and recipe-testing stages of their food-based businesses to community kitchen projects. He said he was.
“It really depends on the needs of the business that we are working on,” Agbede said of LEND’s services. “Historical examples include a business plan and, in some cases, connecting individuals with other organizations that may be helpful.”
The pilot program will be set up in a rental property, but Mendoza said he hopes eventually the kitchen will be installed in a permanent location and under shared ownership. This is a model where kitchen tenants can share space and business costs. She also wants to make the kitchen part of a community space that will host cultural activities.
Roman echoed Mendoza's vision. He, who has lived in Evanston for nearly nine years, said more needs to be done to shine a spotlight on the Latino community.
Perez said she is looking forward to using the community kitchen once it opens. He said this will improve efficiency and allow it to handle more and larger catering orders.
“I do everything at home now, so a commercial kitchen would be great,” he said. “As long as I have a kitchen and a stove and a pot, I’m going to make it happen.”
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— Oakton University partners with Evanston organization to create ESL early childhood education pilot program
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