Houston couple’s new backyard grilling accessory, the charola, is becoming a hot item across the U.S.
Space City Charolas has gone nationwide.
When South Houston resident Eddie Gonzalez watches the orders flooding his email inbox from customers in California, New York City, Texas and places in between, he still can’t wrap his head around the amount of enthusiasm his small company has generated.
The company makes customized outdoor cooking and prep pans that can be used alongside smokers, backyard grills and the massive outdoor griddles that have been growing in popularity.
In the spring of 2023, Gonzalez and his wife, Erika, had been looking for a way to introduce their new business and when one TikTok post that went viral, Space City Charolas lifted off.
“We’re getting orders left and right,” said Gonzalez, 40. “This is so exciting for us.”
That first TikTok video initially amassed 1.1 million views, and the account currently has 17.8K followers and counting. Plus, a newly created Instagram account is getting early buzz.
The Gonzalezes didn’t invent the charola, which is a Mexican term for serving tray, but they have found a way to put their skills in woodworking, engraving and etching into pieces that say something about each customer, whether it’s a favorite pet, a family crest or sports team.
“We’re getting orders left and right. This is so exciting for us.”
Eddie Gonzalez, co-owner of Space City Charolas
The Gonzalezes, both of whose parents are originally from Mexico, believe it’s the Hispanic populations that are responding to the traditional aesthetics of Space City Charolas, which are heavily inspired by the ornately crafted cooking pottery and utensils in Latin American culture.
“In Spanish, we call it ‘la charola para la carne asada’ — and when people would call and order they would refer to them as a charola, and the name just stuck,” he said. “It came from tradition.”
Each order begins with the piece or pieces of wood that will eventually wrap around stainless-steel pan serving containers, or boxes — depending on the order.
Eddie Gonzalez has never had any formal instruction on the art of woodworking, and his wife learned how to engrave and sketch by hand through trial and error.
Those skills have been refined and fine-tuned over the last year and are a major part of what has helped their company grow.
“I don’t have a background in art,” Erika Gonzalez said. “When we started people would ask if we could engrave last names, we said, ‘No, but maybe we can try’ — and it’s gotten better and better with time. We just figured it out.”
The couple now receives more than 30 orders a week, and each charola takes several hours of a day from start to finish.
There are no machines in the Space City Charola workspaces, which include the backyard of the family’s home in South Houston and an RV park in Webster, where the couple is temporarily set up while they build their new house there.
The wood is measured, cut, carved, shaped and then burned, not stained, with propane. “Burning the wood with propane gives it that darker tone, it brings out the natural wood grain,” Eddie Gonzalez said.
Better business for family
For Eddie Gonzalez, Space City Charolas was a chance for his family to regroup.
The couple has a home base in Gonzalez’s hometown of South Houston, but he was burned out by being far from home for much of the week as a driver in the oil and gas industry.
Gonzalez credits his sister for his idea customize serving trays for outside cooking.
“Every time we would have a barbecue at my sister’s house, she was really picky with all her dishes,” he said. “She was always telling me to be careful with them, and not to take this one or that one outside.”
The business kicked off when the Gonzalezes made their first charola for personal use, with insulation, water pans and warmers.
“We bought two steel containers, I made my first one and posted it on my personal Facebook and within two hours, I had something like 25 people asking about it,” he said.
As the orders kept pouring in the couple started incorporating more rustic and more personalized details into each one. When the first TikTok video went crazy, Gonzalez said he knew something was working.
Waiting list for orders
When a special request appeared from El Jalapeño Charro, a restaurant in Windsor, N.Y., the Gonzalezes said they knew their small company had found its distinctive groove.
“They told us they had been looking for something particular for their wait staff to serve but couldn’t find anyone (in
New York) to make it, and asked if we could get it done,” Gonzalez said.
Space City Charolas currently has a waiting list and is receiving orders from Hawaii, New Hampshire, New York, across the south and Texas. Their biggest market right now is California. The charolas can be priced anywhere between $100 and $600 and sometimes more.
Space City Charolas now includes customized accessories like bottle racks, openers and salseras, and the Gonzalezes have donated their charolas to various local fundraising events and raffles in their community.
Outdoor cooking traditions that often gravitate around family and gatherings fit perfectly with the company’s own origin story, said Eddie Gonzalez.
“We just wanted to do something where we could spend more time together as a family because I was on the road a lot,” he said. “My wife wanted me to come home, and I wanted to go to my son’s baseball games and I can do that now.”