How this Miami empanada maker wound up talking to Biden on Twitter
On Friday, a Miami empanada maker enjoyed some face time with President-elect Joe Biden, telling her story and making a pitch for more relief in a video promoting the new administration’s $1.9 billion stimulus proposal.
“Tell me about your business,” Biden said to Half Moon Empanadas owner Pilar Guzman Zavala on the two-minute video posted on the presidentelect’s Twitter account. “How are you doing? What’s going on?”
The snippets came from a video conversation the two had Thursday, which Zavala said lasted about 10 minutes and centered on Biden’s asking about her business struggles.
The company she owns with her husband, Juan Zavala, saw its sales all but evaporate in March when the pandemic hit. Empanada stands operated under a hard-won contract at Miami International Airport shuttered, as did campus locations at the University of Miami and Florida International University.
“He wanted to know my story,” said Zavala, an independent voter who supported Biden and appeared at campaign business roundtables in the fall. “I told him I wanted to give him my opinion. He said, ‘Please do.’ ”
On the video, Zavala told Biden the original COVID business loan program — the Paycheck Protection Program, best known as “PPP” — was too inaccessible for true small businesses.
“I told him we’ve got to do it for the true small businesses — the ones with five people, 10 people,” she said in an interview. “Let’s talk about reality. The small businesses are the ones that need the PPP. And they did not get it.”
Data released in December showed large businesses — those with operations large enough to qualify for the maximum loan amounts — accounted for about half of the PPP payouts.
Zavala said Half Moon did qualify for a PPP loan, relief she credited to persistence and knowing someone at the third bank she approached after the first two couldn’t help. “I was one of the few lucky ones,” she said. “But I had to hustle.”
She said Half Moon managed to survive 2020 from sales at the MIA locations still open, though business there is down about 60%.
A to-go window has been popular at their kitchen at 860 NE 79th St., and the company also shifted to online orders and delivery. Half Moon also won part of a county contract to deliver home meals to seniors, an operation that has the kitchen producing regular meals to meet the county’s nutritional requirements.
“We did two things to survive 2020,” she told Biden. “One, we focused on our sales here in the
... And we became a restaurant ... making meals for seniors.”
Half Moon launched in Miami in 2008, during an economic crisis sparked by a housing crash. Zavala said the company flirted with bankruptcy in the early years.
A break came when they won a county contract in 2013 to open empanada stands at MIA, beating out established players like Sergio’s and Latin Café. “We came in the room. Everyone had on black suits,” Zavala said of the bidding contest. “We had a table warmer, and literally made empanadas in front of the judges.”
Since her online conversation with the next president, Zavala said her phone has been busy with people sending congratulations and asking about her business.
“I got a text this morning asking, ‘Who does your PR?’ ” she said. “I said, ‘I’m the PR person.’ ”