Check out Eder Rivas and Stephanie Gutierrez-Rivas

Today we’d like to introduce you to Eder Rivas, Stephanie Gutierrez-Rivas.

Eder, Stephanie, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
We are a husband and wife team that owns What’s That You’re Cookin? Catering Company. We cater authentic Salvadorian Cuisine, all taught from Eder’s grandparents Emma and Jorge Galdamez. Eder has always had a passion for cooking but it wasn’t till 2016 that he quit his ten year manager job at Smart & Final to pursue food from his culture. Stephanie is a former preschool teacher and loves educating our youth. We cater traditional style pupusas, fried plantains, yuca chicharron, Salvadoran enchiladas, just to name few. We started off as private caterers for private parties and over the past year, obtained all our licenses and permits to open our food booth. We are basically a mobile restaurant. We vend at local events and farmers markets within Orange County and Los Angeles County. We travel to vend wherever the people want us. We take great pride in our small business and the food we prepare. The best part is meeting awesome people and vending at amazing functions.

We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
We cater traditional authentic Salvadorian Cuisine. Eder is fully Salvadoran and loves to share his culture with everyone. Our most famous dish we create is the pupusa. A handmade corn tortilla stuffed inside with different fillings such as cheese, beans and chicharron. The pupusa is topped with a curtido and mild salsa.

Making a pupusa is an art in itself. It takes practice and patience to get the technique down just right. Eder was taught by the best, his grandmother. Eder enjoys educating our audience on the food that comes from our tent. He loves talking with people about his roots, music, the folk art and different foods that come from El Salvador. We wish that people take from us a special place in their hearts for the country of El Salvador and share with their friends about the delicious cuisine they’ve just devoured. Everyone should know Salvadorian cuisine is so simple yet so amazingly mouth-watering good. We have so many different dishes as well and can’t wait for everyone to try.

What do you think it takes to be successful as a business owner?
Being a Salvadorian food vendor isn’t always easy. It takes dedication, practice, experimenting with food, even taking courses on how to be professional. We have to enjoy our journey. Success comes when you get a great recommendation or when you turn someone into a pupusa lover with just one bite. It is also when we have new people wanting to take one of our pupusa technique courses.

We could be having a slow night at the market but it just takes one compliment or one returning customer to make our frowns turn upside down.

To be a pop-up food vendor you need to have great customer service skills, good knowledge of what you’re cooking, quick on your feet and thick skin.

We want to be more than just a food booth, we want to create jobs and opportunities for others like us and provide a space for vendors to sell and a platform for people to tell their stories. Thus we are making a pop-up market in Anaheim and @the_popup_podcast is launching 2020 !!

Do you have any events coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your work?
Social media has been a huge help to start our business. We started off catering private parties and then created an Instagram and Facebook business page. We post our weekly schedule every Sunday night so that people can find our pop-up locations and plan accordingly. People can support us by purchasing from us, hiring us, liking our post or sharing us. It doesn’t cost anything to support us if you have good word of mouth.

Contact Info:

• Phone: 7143884423
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: whatsthatyourecookin714
• Facebook: Eder WTYC Page
• Twitter: what’s that you’re cookin?

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