When Puyero owner Gilberto Arends and his wife Manuela Billasmil moved to Philadelphia from Venezuela in 2011, they quickly fell in love with the city’s thriving food scene. What confounded them was that such a big city had only one Venezuelan restaurant.

The couple believed that if they built a local Venezuelan restaurant that sold tasty items like arepas or patacones, they would have a hit.

It turns out that they were right.

“When we opened Puyero up, we kind of expected to have a place where Venezuelans felt at home,” he told Technical.ly. “If you move to Miami, Houston or any country in South America it’s easy to feel connected to people in your community. In Philly, there were not as many Venezuelans. We knew that Puyero would become that home away from home.”

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