New Partner: Arepas

Just what the city needed: introducing the best Venezuelan bites in town, in our humble opinion. We are thrilled to have Arepas Latin Cuisine as a new partner on the Mission 18th Street Tour in San Francisco. Shout out to Joanna Torres and her crew who bring their A-game serving arepas, tostones, tequeños, and other tempting dishes.

The restaurant gets two thumbs up from Edible Excursions owner Lisa Rogovin and her husband Josh, who grew up in Venezuela and knows a thing or two about the cuisine. He says both the forms and flavors take him right back to his childhood and he’s delighted to share his favorite comfort foods with his family.

It’s all in the details here. We’re fans of the restaurant’s mini arepas called arepitas (think sliders): handheld, flat, round patties that can be grilled or fried and then stuffed with flavorful fillings. Arepa’s maize-based morsels come loaded with shredded beef, braised pork, or shredded chicken. There’s a plantain, black bean, avocado, and pico de gallo option, too. Hot tip: Pair your arepa with some sangria. Glasses come garnished with orange slices, a cinnamon stick, and a sprig of rosemary—it’s a fun, fragrant, festive drink.

We’re also fans of Arepa’s tostones—that’s a crisp, flattened green plantain—that comes topped with a variety of ingredients. Try the tangy red cabbage and seasoned shrimp. And might we suggest starting with their tequeños, a fried pastry filled with gooey Venezuelan queso blanco (fresh cheese) served with a green dipping sauce. Joanna sources the cheese—and other ingredients—from Miami.

Bonus: You can pick up packaged Venezuelan snacks from the restaurant’s la tiendita (mini market). The restaurant also hosts event nights: live salsa, karaoke, soccer viewing parties, and other entertainment.

The restaurant is Joanna’s baby; she left Venezuela more than two decades ago in search of opportunities, she says, and the pursuit of the American Dream. She has always wanted to share her passion for Latin comfort food with a South American flavor. It just took a while to find the right time, place, and fit.

Joannna first landed in Miami. She moved there to do a master’s degree. It wasn’t easy: She struggled to learn English. Joanna met a fellow Latina in class, Josefina “Joy” Flores, who became a lifelong friend and fellow entrepreneur. It wasn’t hard to find Venezuelan food in Florida. When she moved to San Jose, she couldn’t find food from the homeland anywhere. She dearly missed dishes she grew up cooking with her grandmother.

Opening a restaurant wasn’t on the table. An accomplished home cook, Joanna says she didn’t know anything about running a restaurant, so she decided to devote her time to launching another business. For two decades she has run a medical services consulting company. She also has a commercial construction company. But she always wanted to find a way to share her culture and cuisine with her community. “I love food and am a people person, and because of my ties to the community and seeing a lot more Venezuelans and Colombians arriving, the time finally seemed right to open my own restaurant,” she says.

Joy, who is of Mexican heritage, had gone the restaurant route. She had a space available in the Willow Glen neighborhood in San Jose. So Joanna decided to go for it and opened her first Arepas in late October 2021. She had a few booming months of business, she says, before pandemic challenges hit. Undeterred, when an opportunity arose to open a second Arepas in San Francisco in the fall of 2022, Joanna, who now lives with her family in Kensington (near Berkeley), didn’t hesitate. American Dream fulfilled.

One point of pride: How many Colombian and Venezuelan immigrants frequent both locations. “It tells me that the food is authentic,” she says, “and that we can help bring a little piece of their home countries here.”

Joanna still has ties to Venezuela. She employees Venezuelans in her consulting business and in her restaurants and she started a foundation in her homeland. The charity built a school and provides basic necessities in an area close to where Joanna grew up on a small island. “Community is so important to me, and so much a part of my success,” she says. “I couldn’t run my companies, the foundation, or my restaurants without all the people who help make them a success.”

She adds: “My restaurants are a combination of my love of my culture and its food and my passion for service, which has been a theme in all my businesses. I am so grateful for the warm reception both restaurants have received.”