How Do You Start a Small Food Business in America's Most Expensive City? Ask La Cocina

Hilary Cadigan

January 17, 2019 at 4:00 a.m.

Guadalupe Guerrero

When Guadalupe Guerrero arrived in the United States from her hometown of Guanajuato, Mexico, she landed a job at a taqueria in Berkeley. Within a few years, she was running the place. “But I was doing it for someone else,” she recalls, “and I thought, why not do this for myself?” Six years later, after going through the La Cocina incubator, she and her daughters, Brenda and Alejandra, own a full-fledged restaurant called El Pipila, which opened in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood in November. From the family recipe sopes to the bright, colorful design, the restaurant represents who the Guerreros are: past, present, and future. “Our first logo was based on El Pipila, a man with a monument in Guanajuato,” says Brenda. “The new one is all about a woman—our mom.”

Photo by Alec Lesser

As the tech bubble grows and long-time residents get displaced, so too does their food—but nonprofit culinary incubator La Cocina is fighting back.

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