Just 29, She’s ‘Off to a Pretty Good Start’
The name of the restaurant is not exactly a common word, and pronouncing it correctly is a challenge for many of its patrons. It’s mangled so often, in fact, that owner and founder Maria Lara-Bregatta is fond of telling customers, “If you can pronounce marijuana, you can pronounce Mamajuana.”
It’s a clever mnemonic, and it usually does the trick.
Located in the Old North End of Burlington, Café Mamajuana specializes in Dominican cuisine. Lara-Bregatta started the venture after spending much of her life working in her family’s Dominican restaurant. Upon moving to Vermont, she quickly learned the state didn’t have any of the cultural food she grew up on and wanted to change that.
“This is not what I went to college for, and I never thought I’d open my own restaurant. But I grew up on empanadas. I grew up on cacia rolls with homemade tropical guava butter. There was nowhere to get any of that here, so I wanted to bring Dominican food to Burlington,” Lara-Bregatta said.
In 2018, at age 26, she started smallcooking in her home kitchen for catering jobs. Soon after, she moved on to pop-up restaurants at fairs, music festivals, breweries and even other restaurants.
In 2020, Lara-Bregatta wanted to move into her own place, but she ran into and obstacle many young small-business owners face when trying to expand: Her age and lack of credit prevented her from securing a traditional loan.
To obtain the needed capital, Lara-Bregatta took a novel yet modern approach. First, she launched a crowdfunding campaign, which quickly raised $60,000. Next, she learned about Oak Street Co-operative, a group looking to purchase 88 Oak Street, a location that had recently become available. Along with the owners of Poppy Café, Café Mamajuana and Oak Street Co-Operative secured a loan for the property.
“We simply went out into the community, asking, ‘Do you want to see this place in the hands of the community or do you want to see it in the hands of a conglomerate,’” said Lara-Bregatta. “Now we are investors and tenants. The best part is there are people in the neighborhood who have a direct stake in this business because they belong to the co-op.”
The restaurants operate under a shared-ownership model in which the space in the front of the building is occupied by the Poppy Café in the afternoon and by Café Mamajuana in the evening. A third restaurant, All Souls Tortilleria, occupies the space in the back of the building full time.
“I'm a strong advocate of share-ownership models generally and was already involved with the Vermont Real Estate Co-op project when I learned about the Oak Street property," explained Matt Crop, executive director of the Vermont Employee Ownership Center and board chair of Oak Street Co-Operative. “So we pulled together a group that included some of the VREC for a parallel project, and one thing led to another,”
Café Mamajuana has garnered quite a following in its first few years of business. Friday nights are the busiest, and Saturdays aren’t far behind since Lara-Bregatta introduced a brunch menu. It has regulars who come for the empanada of the week or to sip on the café’s signature drink.
“Mamajuana is the official drink of the Dominican Republic. It’s a combination of rum and red wine soaked in tree bark,” Lara-Bregatta said. “We brew about three gallons a week. We fly through it. It’s our namesake, so people always want to try it.”
Lara-Bregatta’s hard work has already paid big dividends, and she is proud to be recognized with an SBA award specifically geared to entrepreneurs under 30.
“I didn’t go to school for this, so it’s been a lot of fake it till you make it. But in a short time, I have created seven jobs, brought comfort and nostalgia to a community otherwise lacking food representation and illustrated the benefits of the co-operative structure, all while highlighting the power and healing that a BIPOC business brings to the state. I feel I’m off to a pretty good start,” she said. historic freight house.