Series de la Comida

Stephanie El Tawil & Ariel Meza visit Smilin Knives, a Filipino fusion pop-up participant from DTLB Food Series 1.0

Stephanie El Tawil October 2025

As we're preparing for The Weekly Crave featuring our Spanish speaking cohort AND celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month, I thought it appropriate to talk about the DTLB Food Series and the insights learned from organizing each of the different cohorts. 

The first year (2024), our workshops met monthly and we developed the content as we went - we had the educational components mapped out but intentionally incorporated networking events in the alternating months to give our attendees practice connecting with one another, as well as expose them to the non traditional education elements e.g., best practices working events and farmers markets, sustainable business practices, etc. Sourcing speakers for each workshop and event was a bit of a load but we had time as that cohort was meeting monthly. It went fairly smoothly but the results were lackluster.

While planning the 2.0 series (2025), we decided to adjust the timeline for a few reasons:

• Many attendees fell off after the summer months

• There was no incentive for attendees to take action month over month because and I quote “there's time”

• Logistics for each workshop/event became daunting as organizational priorities shifted e.g., competing events and projects made the preparation difficult at times

• Also, we were hyper aware of the separation naturally occurring between the attendees who spoke different languages in the first program iteration. We offered Spanish translation services and had a handful of attendees take us up on it every month. However, the networking events were heavily English speakers and those who did speak Spanish only were clearly siloed. 

So, we decided instead to shorten the coursework from 12 months to 7 weeks and run two separate cohorts, one in English and one in Spanish. The first cohort (spring) was easy to organize - we had already identified the curriculum, the speakers, and had a high learning curve on logistics. All we had to do was add the incentive piece, which resulted in The Weekly Crave. Those who attended all sessions, completed the steps to get their Long Beach license and permits and applied to participate in the food-based, event pop-up series received first year reimbursement of fees, as well as their TFF costs covered. These 5 new businesses were then paired with a more reputable vendor at a vacant storefront in Downtown Long Beach to sell their food in a safe space. We handled the marketing and assisted with setup and take down with the whole goal of incubating their first run of show in an environment that they could learn from as well as make some money. We felt this program was very unique because in addition to activating a corridor with a recurring pop up event, we were also demonstrating use in a vacant storefront, an attraction tactic used by many economic developers designed around the ‘build it and they will come’ mentality. 

The first (spring) cohort of the 2nd year adapted program graduated 22 of 24 applicants, with 5 businesses successfully launching and participating in The Weekly Crave (April 2025). It's important to note that each of these vendors sold out at their Tuesday evening event, many recounting the experiences with a plethora of lessons learned and an optimism for future events. It worked - we created an incubator model that inspired, encouraged, and educated food-trepreneurs who are now successfully serving our community! 

With the first successful cohort under our belt, we started planning out the second (fall) cohort with language as the only change - do it again, but this time in Spanish. Easy, right? Wrong! 

Right off the bat, we underestimated the workload required to translate all of the collateral - website, marketing designs, applications, instructor information, sign in documents, signage…we quickly fell behind and confused ourselves with status updates on everything. Luckily, our partner, Dina, at Feel Good Kitchen LB and in house staff, Ariel, are fluent Spanish speakers. As they were trudging away, I took the role of soliciting speakers for each workshop subject (7 in total). We are also very fortunate that the City of Long Beach is well prepared to offer all of their presentations in multiple languages - they were the easy part. Staff from the departments of financial management, procurement and the health department scheduled their Spanish speaking staff and shared presentation materials accordingly. A little more back and forth than the previous cohort but we got it on the calendar and were moving along. The gaps left to fill were in recruitment of subject matter experts in marketing and accounting specifically and when I say gaps, I mean _____ sized craters. In reflection, I'm not sure what I was expecting but I assumed that in Long Beach California, identifying Spanish speaking experts in business development services would be a lot easier than it was. I contacted everyone - universities, community colleges, non profit groups, small business development organizations, professional service providers, friends of someone that knows someone..I started local but quickly expanded into LA and even Orange County. There were probably two people out of dozens I contacted that were even capable of presenting the content, but were unavailable that day specifically. It was rough - I was rejected by at least a dozen people and all I kept thinking about at each dead end was “is it this hard for them everyday”? In the end we had to hire a Spanish translator for our English speaking accounting instructor - who it turns out was pretty bilingual and didn't actually need a translator. And was able to find a single marketing professional that absolutely crushed the entire marketing best practices for us (a workshop that had three instructors in English)...Thank you Process Innovators (accounting) and Braven Agency (Marketing)! I have so much love for the people who understood our goal and made it happen for us, as well as all of those along that way that tried their hardest to find us a resource or connection - that collaboration was absolutely beautiful. But I am still bewildered that in 2025 we struggled so hard to help our Spanish speaking businesses. The whole experience was genuinely eye opening. As the only “English only” person in the room, I have few insights to share:

1. Not all processes and information are created equally. Many of the materials (e.g., applications, FAQ docs, etc) that exist in multiple languages are shortened and condensed in Spanish because it's less frequently requested. Also, availability of personal assistance is severely reduced for the same reason. 

2. Translation is exhausting! If/when services and information aren't available, non English speakers are forced to use various methods to simply comprehend. I don't know if you've ever filled out an application with a government entity, but terminology alone can be confusing…I often get overwhelmed googling acronyms, zoning rules, etc. while trying to understand complex processes, I can only imagine having to take it the next step and then translating that information into another language. Even our translators, Dina & Ariel, commented about the mental fortitude required to continuously listen, understand, translate, and then respond…it's a full mental workout.

3. Advocacy and action are two very different things! As we informed participants and stakeholders of the changes we were making to incorporate more inclusive programming, we received numerous accolades. However, it really ended there. Very few organizations and institutions shared our work or request for participants and while some groups reached out regarding the planning elements, none seemed interested or motivated to adapt their programming to meet the needs of their populations. 

I don’t want to diminish the work we do see in our community as I write out these insights. There are many organizations state and country wide that are prioritizing Latino education models and true advocacy as their missions. My goal is to point out the flaws in a system made for a very specific audience as we continue to question why small businesses are failing to launch. The same case could be made for educational systems as a whole - how do we drive effective change for an actually inclusive model that assists development instead of restricting or minimizing access? And how many other populations are being excluded that we should acknowledge and incorporate into the plan?

Just some food for thought. (Pun intended)