Authenticity in the City

When Mayra Pacheco and her family arrived in St. Louis from Florida in 2018, they were dismayed that they couldn’t find restaurants serving Venezuelan cuisine. The food they grew up eating was easy to find in the Sunshine State thanks to a substantial number of Venezuelan immigrant communities; in the St. Louis metro, only about 0.5% of residents were born in Venezuela, according to data from 2022. Pacheco and her sister, Maria, saw an opportunity to introduce Venezuelan cuisine to the Gateway to the West.

Amaiz-ing Cakes Latin Food made its debut at the Tower Grove Farmers’ Market in 2019. The Pacheco sisters served their signature arepas, cachapas, empanadas, tequenos, and more to shoppers each Saturday. The response was so positive, they expanded to other St. Louis events and markets like the Festival of Nations, Festival of the Little Hills, the Greater St. Louis Hispanic Festival, the Laumeier Art Fair, and Cherokee Street Cinco de Mayo.

“We want to bring in more Americans to try the food, because when you say Latin food, people think only of tacos,” Pacheco laughs. “We have more really good food — Peruvians have really good food. Venezuela has really good food. The flavors are totally different than what (many Americans) have tried. We would love to be how the taco is in the world, so that everybody knows what an arepa is, how you can eat it, and how you can get it. That’s our goal.”

Pacheco decided to make the leap to a brick-and-mortar restaurant in Downtown St. Louis in February 2024, although you can still find her colorful tent serving most weeks in Tower Grove Park. The restaurant, dubbed Amaizing Arepa Bar, caters to Downtown residents, office workers, sports fans, and tourists alike at the corner of 14th and St. Charles streets, just blocks from the City Museum, the Convention Center, Union Station, and Energizer Park.

“St. Louis is a very versatile city with a lot of diversity, which allows us to adapt our menu and reach more people — not just locals, but tourists, too,” Pacheco says. “It allows us to reach people with different sports tastes, since we are close to the hockey, baseball, and soccer stadiums.”

Pacheco, who lives in St. Peters, felt Downtown St. Louis was the perfect neighborhood for Amaizing Arepa Bar. 

“A lot of our customers are in Tower Grove, and (this Downtown location) is not a long drive,” she says. “This is a good spot — we have the museums, Enterprise Center, Busch Stadium. We are just right there. We are seeing all this investment that the city is planning and developing, especially around the Washington Avenue area. We see that in the long run there are going to be a lot of businesses in that area, because they are trying to change the face of Downtown St. Louis.”

As more investment is made in the neighborhood, Pacheco has faith that Amaizing Arepa Bar is in the right place and that Downtown St. Louis will continue to improve and grow. “We are trying to do our part and stay (Downtown) and support the city,” she says. “I think in a couple of years, that area is going to be better for everybody, for business, and for people who want to live in that area. We saw this opportunity and we are envisioning that this is going to be better for everybody.”

The bright, inviting interior of Amaizing Arepa Bar features exposed brick, high ceilings, warm wood tables, and a cheerful blue bar. Playful painted signs direct guests to Venezuelan cities and landmarks like Maracay and Salto Angel; woven baskets and hats adorning the walls evoke a beachside cafe. The restaurant is decorated with vibrant local art, paper flowers, and the colors of the Venezuelan flag: blue, yellow, and red. A centerpiece is the handpainted cacti mural that reads “St. Louis Mi Amor.” 

Pacheco still works full-time for Murphy Mechanical Company, while Maria manages restaurant operations during the week. Pacheco attributes her cooking skills to her grandmother, and growing up in a family where she and her siblings were taught to cook on a daily basis.

The house specialty, arepas, are cornmeal cakes made with sweet corn and stuffed with a variety of meats, veggies, and cheeses. Amaizing’s signature arepa, for example, La Galactica, features grilled pork, shredded beef and chicken, plantains, and cheese. Another favorite are the cachapas, made with queso de mano, a creamy white Venezuelan cheese.

“Cachapas are a sweet corn pancake with cheese,” Pacheco explains. “It’s like a regular pancake, same size and everything, but the only twist is that we use sweet corn instead of flour. You have a good combination between the shell, which is sweet, and everything that we put inside it is savory.”

Popular entrees include Pacheco’s fried empanadas, a favorite at the Tower Grove Farmers’ Market, and the Venezuelan grilled plate, which can feed two. Appetizers include tostones, fried green plantains, and tequenos, fried rolled cheese sticks. There are also a few desserts such as Venezuelan flan, tres leches cake, and churros. 

The Pachecos recently added a cocktail menu, too, including specialty margaritas, to complement their range of non-alcoholic Venezuelan drink offerings such as chicha, a drink made of rice, milk, and sugar with nutmeg and cinnamon, and Frescolita, a Venezuelan red cream soda.

Diners can also pick up frozen one-pound protein portions, arepas, or empanadas, plus a selection of sides, soups, and sauces to enjoy at home. “We understand that sometimes people don’t have the opportunity to stop in the restaurant,” Pacheco says. “We want to open our umbrella and try to serve everybody.”

To that end, her ultimate dream for Amaizing Arepa Bar extends far beyond 14th Street. 

“We’re trying to change the kind of business that we are doing: We would like to have franchises in the other farmers markets,” she says, such as in Kirkwood and Lake St. Louis. “We are trying to expand into frozen food so we can put Venezuelan food in different places like restaurants, hotels, and supermarkets. If we have the opportunity, we would like to have another location to the west, like St. Charles. I know that there is a growing Latin population in St. Charles, so we’re trying to expand our business as much as we can so people know our culture through the food.”