On a Thursday evening, Laura Santander and her Colombian friends surround the TV in their Big Eddy apartment, watching their favourite soccer team play back home as Colombian coffee brews in their kitchen.
It's this kind of warm connection to far-away home that Santander and her partner Miguel Rodriguez hope to create with their new online Latino snack shop, SantoMecato.
"Living away from home, the thing you miss the second most after family is the food from your country," Santander told Black Press Media in a Spanish-language interview.
But with limited access to feel-good snacks they have back home, and two hours by car to the nearest Latino-goods store in Kelowna, satisfying this longing isn't easy for Latinos in Revelstoke.
The Colombian couple, both from Bogotá and arrived to Canada within the last two years, launched SantoMecato on Instagram in late January to begin ordering in snacks from Chile, Mexico, Peru and their home country to Revelstoke's year-round Latino community of roughly 50.
In Spanish, "mecato" means snacks, while "santo" refers to a saint but has been used affectionately by other businesses in Santander's family because it shares the same first letters as their surname. By offering dozens of different goods from across Latin America, Santander explained, SantoMecato also helps forge a stronger connection within Revelstoke's Latino community.
"They know the Colombian products, but maybe not the Chilean or Mexican ones," she said, adding that compared to places with less international diversity, "it's easier to exchange the cultures here in Revelstoke."
With a plan to make international orders every two weeks and offer cash-payment pick-up from their home, Santander and Rodriguez already have items such as crackers, candies, chips, beans, maize, eggs and ajiaco soup mix on the menu. They perhaps feel proudest of supplying flour for Colombia-famed arepas, also popular in India, China and Poland, but are actively taking more requests from the community.
"We're investigating what the people like and want," Santander said, adding "the idea is that people don't have to leave the city" for these products they enjoyed while growing up back home.
Starting this niche type of enterprise isn't easy, but "the vision is eventually opening a physical store," Rodriguez explained in Spanish.
In some cases, customers can expect to have their snacks in the pantry between three and eight days after purchase, though Rodriguez notes that climatic conditions may influence their supply change significantly during biweekly deliveries from abroad.
Yet even just a couple weeks since SantoMecato's launch, Revelstokians of other nationalities have shown curiosity about it as well, including Canadian, Japanese and Korean community members. Santander emphasized that this business isn't just meant for Latinos, but for Revelstoke's entire community to have the opportunity to learn about Latin America's different cultures through food.
"Let's see what happens," an optimistic Santander remarked, noting she and Rodriguez plan to soon expand their business's social media presence.
For now, those craving arepas or other snacks can contact SantoMecato on Instagram at https://shorturl.at/2yw5M.
