The Empanada Lady: A +40% Night

On May 28, 2026, Colado Latino Network filled The Empanada Lady in downtown Baltimore for our second main event: 42 tickets sold, walk-ins who joined on the spot, and a night that lifted the Puerto Rican-owned restaurant’s sales 40.3% over a normal Thursday. The owner, Elisa, got on the mic before it ended and invited the whole community back.

We were nervous going in. Here’s the honest version of how it went.

The quick recap:

• 42 tickets for a two-hour Thursday event, downtown
• Hosted at The Empanada Lady, Puerto Rican-owned, right in the middle of the city
• Net sales up 40.3% over the venue’s average Thursday
• Guests drove down from as far as Silver Spring, MD
• 18 Colado stickers by @_thecuriouscreative went home with people

What we were worried about

Downtown Baltimore is a different animal from a neighborhood spot. Parking exists, but it’s a scavenger hunt: garages scattered across several blocks and nothing right next to the restaurant. For a community where plenty of people drive in from the county, that’s real friction. We mapped the garages, posted the parking guide with the tickets, and hoped.

The second worry was time. We’d learned at our first event at Bodega and Vino that doors at 6:00 means our gente arriving at 6:30, 6:45, sometimes fashionably later than that. We love us. We also had exactly two hours in the space. So instead of fighting the arrival curve, we planned for it: the structured moments moved deeper into the night, and the early window stayed loose for whoever beats the crowd.

People showed up when they showed up. And we were ready.

Plan for the room you actually have, not the one on paper.

The walk-ins we didn’t plan for

Here’s what nobody predicted: The Empanada Lady sits in the middle of downtown, which means foot traffic, which means people who had no idea Colado existed wandered into an empanada shop mid-event and found a full-blown Latino business community in progress.

Some of them stayed. They asked what this was, got pulled into conversations, and took part in the event like they’d registered weeks ago. Strangers walked in for dinner and walked out with contacts. If you ever needed proof that this community has gravity, that was it.

Elisa on the mic

Near the end of the night, Elisa, the owner, took the microphone. She thanked the room for coming, talked about wanting to open her doors wider to our culture, and told everybody they’re welcome back anytime. Getting that from the owner of a Puerto Rican-owned restaurant, in her own space, unprompted, meant more to us than any metric.

Then she backed it up with the metrics anyway.

The numbers Elisa shared

After the event, Elisa sent us the sales data from that night, compared against her average Thursday. This is the second venue in a row that saw a real lift from one Colado gathering, and this time it happened with fewer people in the room than our first event drew.

The Empanada Lady, May 28	Result
Net sales vs. an average Thursday	+40.3%
Orders	56
Guests served	58
Average ticket	About $26.20

Bodega and Vino saw +51% with 60 attendees. The Empanada Lady saw +40.3% with 42 tickets. Fewer people, nearly the same lift. Our community doesn’t just show up, it shows up hungry, thirsty, and ready to support whoever’s hosting.

How the tickets worked

We ran this one with two ticket types, and the split says a lot about how we think. A donation ticket let people chip in any amount, even a dollar, toward what it takes to keep hosting these gatherings at Latino-owned businesses. A free ticket sat right next to it for anyone who couldn’t give that week, no questions, no difference in what you got at the door. Both were limited, both moved fast, and nobody in the room could tell who held which. That’s the point.

Everything Colado builds so far comes out of our own pockets and our own hearts, the events, the stickers, the site you’re reading. Pay-what-you-can keeps the door open in both directions: accessible for the community, sustainable for us. The room was capped at 80, we sold 42, and the walk-ins filled in the rest of the story. Plenty of space to grow into. We like it that way.

Nobody pays to be in this community. Some choose to invest in it.

Who was in the room

Latino entrepreneurs, creatives, and professionals from all over the map, and we mean that literally. A group of guests drove down from Silver Spring, Maryland, an hour of Thursday traffic, to spend two hours with this community in Baltimore City. People brought friends. Friends brought business cards they didn’t expect to need.

The 18 stickers, designed by @_thecuriouscreative, disappeared fast. Little things like that end up on laptops and water bottles around the city, and every one is somebody claiming this community in public.

People kept telling us the same thing: this doesn't exist anywhere else here.

That sentence stuck with us the whole ride home. Not because it’s flattering, but because it’s the exact gap we started Colado Latino Network to close. Attendees told us they felt comfortable. They felt welcomed. Several stopped mid-conversation just to say thank you for building the thing they’d been waiting for. Eso fue real.

What this event proved

Two main events, two venues, two sets of numbers pointing the same direction. When Baltimore’s Latino community gathers somewhere Latino-owned, the venue wins, the guests win, and the community gets denser in the best way. Every conversation at The Empanada Lady made the next event easier to fill and the case for hosting us easier to make.

For a venue owner reading this, the math is worth spelling out. A Thursday that would’ve done its usual numbers instead did 40% better, with a crowd that ordered real food and now knows exactly where you are. Elisa told us the night brought in new customers and lifted foot traffic, people who’d never set foot in the restaurant before and now have a reason to come back. That return visit doesn’t show up in our table above. The event lift is the headline; the new regulars are the compounding interest.

That case now lives across everything we do: the events where the room fills up, the Latino business directory where the community finds each other between gatherings, and Colado Connects, which turns one night’s introduction into an ongoing relationship.

Questions people ask about this event

Where is The Empanada Lady? The Empanada Lady is a Puerto Rican-owned restaurant at 10 South Street in downtown Baltimore, led by its owner, Elisa. She hosted Colado Latino Network’s second main event on May 28, 2026, and yes, the empanadas are as good as you’ve heard. Menu and hours live on her site.

Was this event free? Yes. Tickets were free to reserve on Eventbrite, with an optional donation ticket for anyone who wanted to chip in toward future gatherings. Nobody pays to be part of this community.

How many people attended? Forty-two tickets sold, and the real number ran higher once downtown walk-ins joined the event. The venue served 58 guests over the night.

What did the event do for the restaurant? The Empanada Lady’s net sales came in 40.3% above her average Thursday, across 56 orders and 58 guests served. One two-hour community event did that on a regular weeknight.

How do I find the next Colado event? The next gathering always lives on the events page with its free Eventbrite RSVP. We announce new dates first on Instagram at @colado.network.

Can my restaurant or business host a Colado event? Yes, and this recap is basically the pitch. If you run a Latino-owned space in the Baltimore area and want a packed, spending, grateful room on a weeknight, start at our sponsorship page or reach out through the contact page.