A Venezuelan eatery started with a love of food and $300

If you’ve driven down North Clinton, you’ve seen bright blue shipping containers repurposed into makeshift retail spaces facing a stage at the center of the International Plaza. Roxy Hernandez operates from one of these blue containers, transforming the 8-foot-by-20-foot box into a take-out restaurant.

Roxy Mis Panitas brings a taste of Venezuela not found elsewhere in the Rochester area.

“I’ve worked with food and loved different cultures in food, but I had never formalized myself as a cook,” says Hernandez, who formally launched the venture in 2025, a year after coming to the United States from Caracas.

The business started with a love of food and $300.

“I started from home. I didn’t have money. And a friend lent me $300 to start working,” explains Hernandez.

That same day, she got to work catering a welcome party hosted by one of her friends. She began her business by making sopa de modongo, traditional Venezuelan food, which she couldn’t find made the way she liked it.

“I started selling sopas calientes, selling what Venezuelans like. That’s how I made a living from home, with Venezuelan flavors,” says Hernandez.

Within a week, she had paid her friend back and made a profit.  

“I wanted to formalize myself. I was waiting for something bigger. But I didn’t have the resources,” she says. 

Hernandez sought assistance from the Ibero-American Action League for certifications and other business needs. 

“Grants and scholarships help with extra equipment, navigating food inspections, and helping them grow their space,” says Jason Barber, site manager for the International Plaza.

For the first time since the International Plaza’s opening in 2020, the plaza has had container rentals filled with full-season vendors. Over a dozen vendors have operated from these rental spaces since the plaza’s inception.

“Businesses use (these vendor spaces) as a transition to something brick and mortar and help them grow within the community, and add more brick-and-mortar stores with diverse cuisine, food, and (immigrant-) owned businesses,” Barber says. “The plaza is a great place to test that.”

As a patron approaches Hernandez’s stand, a waft of maize, common in Venezuelan cuisine like patacon and cachapas (sweet-corn pancakes), makes its way as arepas are made from scratch and sizzle on the open-face grill in the corner. 

“The cachapa is very good. It’s delicious. It’s not a favorite because people don’t know it well, but it’s Venezuelan,” says Hernandez.

It’s not just Venezuelans enjoying her food; she’s also gaining customers through her quickly growing social media presence, which has garnered over 1,000 followers on Facebook, mainly through word of mouth.

Hernandez hopes to open a brick-and-mortar store in the future. But for the rest of the season, she’ll be at the plaza.

“Sometimes (business is) good, and sometimes it’s bad. But there are always new people who come and try. They like it,” Hernandez says.

Emmely Eli Texcucano is a member of the Oasis Project’s second cohort.

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