CINCINNATI — Every few weekends, people will find Guillermo Vidal and Arnaldo Vasquez in a role they never expected, cooking and serving hundreds of servings of a dish most of their clientele never heard of before.
What You Need To Know
- MashRoots started in 2017 to introduce Cincinnati to mofungo
- Mofungo is a traditional Latino-Caribbean dish that combines mashed plantains with meat and beans
- MashRoots found enough success to open a restaurant by the end of the year
- The owners hope to use their foods to establish a cultural exchange
The pair moved to Cincinnati more than 15 years ago, taking on engineering positions at Proctor and Gamble.
Vidal and Vasquez grew to love the city, establishing families and roots but one thing was missing.
“There’s a lack of diversity in the Midwest and a lack of diversity among Latinos,” Vidal said. “We want to help bring people together and expose them to cultures beyond Mexico.”
Vidal is half Brazilian and half Cuban. Vasquez is Puerto Rican.
In 2017, they decided the best way to share their culture was by sharing one of their favorite home-cooked meals. The opened a food stand that year, MashRoots, to sell mofungo.
“It’s something that we want. We couldn’t find it. Now we have it,” Vasquez said. “Plus, it’s available to everybody else. So it’s kind of like super nice for all the Hispanics and also very nice for everybody else as well.”
The dish is something many people in public does not know much about. Vasquez said they spend as much time teaching the public about mofungo as they do serving it, but after three years, the tides seem to be turning.
“At the beginning, it took a lot of explanation and education, but now we’ve got a lot of fans and the fans help us spread the word,” Vasquez said.
Mofungo is a traditional Puerto Rican and Latino-Caribbean dish that combines mashed roots, traditionally plantains, and meat or black beans. Vasquez and Vidal’s version also includes vegetables or slaws, adding Brazilian and U.S. flavors to the mix.
Since 2017, MashRoots dished up mofungo as a pop-up stand. Patrons might find it at city events or every couple of weekends at Findlay Market. Now, the pair said Cincinnati’s appetite for the dish has outgrown their stand and so has the cook’s ambitions.
They spent the past year looking for a permanent location. Vidal and Vasquez said they found a home in Cincinnati’s College Hill neighborhood.
“It’s going to be a very fun place to be,” Vasquez said.
The pair wants to design the restaurant like a Latino kitchen. The interior will have long, family-style tables, and an open kitchen so guests can watch the cooks make their food.
They hope to open the place by the end of the year.
The venture is part of a growing trend in Latino and Hispanic entrepreneurship across Ohio and the country. According to the U.S. Census, Ohio’s Latino population has more than doubled in the past 20 years and the Cincinnati Hispanic Chamber of commerce reports Hispanic-Owned businesses are growing at the same rate.
While Vasquez and Vidal said they’re happy to be a part of that trend, they said they don’t expect the business to take over their lives. In fact, they hope opening the restaurant will give them more time to focus on their work at Proctor and Gamble.
“We love our jobs, so we’re not planning to quit,” Vidal said.
They plan to hire a restaurant manager and cooks to take care of making the mofungo, while Vasquez and Vidal instead move to working on the bigger picture, the cultural exchange.
While the food draws in the crowds, Vidal and Vasquez hope it’s just a starting point. As the restaurant grows, the pair wants to continue educating the community about their home cultures, eventually sponsoring trips to Latin America.
When their restaurant opens, they hope their service is as educational as it is delicious, making Cincinnati a more colorful place with each mofungo served.
