24. Pimentón, a unique and hidden pizzeria

Welcome to the Puerto Rico Travelcast. I'm Bill and I'm Renee and this is episode 24 where we

interview Daniel Rivera, the owner of Pimentón Pizzeria. He also owns Cafe La Estacion, both

which are in the Shell 65 gas station on Route 65 in Carolina. And that route is also called

number two on the map, so it's really confusing. This is our favorite restaurant and we love the

vegetarian pizza. This is our favorite place to stop on the way back from San Juan too.

All right, we just arrived at the 65th Infantry Shell gas station here

and this is where Pimentón is located.

This is also where the gas station coffee

shop is, which is part of Pimentón. But how would you know that this is an amazing

restaurant because it looks like a gas station? I think that's pretty cool. We're going to be

interviewing Daniel, so I think we'll go in and get a coffee.

My name is Daniel Rivera Garradón and I'm the owner of Pimentón and Cafe La Estacion.

Did you own the gas station? How did this happen?

Yes, I bought the gas station in 2012 and then it suddenly it didn't make the convenience store

sales. And to do something different in the area, there was not good coffee around. So there's a lot

of competition in the area. There's supermarkets, pharmacies, auto parts in everywhere. So that's

why the convenience store wasn't making the sales. There was not coffee.

So I bought the gas station in 2014 and I got a coffee shop in 2014 like I had said,

and then I decided to become a barista and started the coffee shop in 2014.

We just tested your coffee for probably the 20th time I've been here before. It's really good.

I'm going to say in this podcast publicly that I got a cup of coffee. It was two dollars. Is that

going to stay? I mean, it was really a nice price.

Yeah, that's really hard. It's a challenge right now. Everything is going to get better and better.

Yeah.

up like the materials like maintenance like if we decide to make maintenance on the coffee bar

it's going to be a double price that we usually had employees we're paying better so it's it's

really that's a good question because it's really hard to sustain it right now certainly is a good

price so people need to come here now your restaurant pimenton i tell guests that you're

very close to the airport so when they come to the rainforest inn they can stop here and eat

and i'm wondering what do you think your percentages of tourist visitors compared to

locals tourism here it's more about like locals bringing tourists it's it's like a hidden

treasure some people say right and it's so hidden that that it's hard to find it because no one

expects having this pizzeria in a gas station so it's

more like words of mouth how did you learn the restaurant business when i started the restaurant

about uh 2015 i went to united states and um i took training with a guy from naples

we started you know the restaurant business that way taking training of how to do pizzas

uh what we should do then i went to some seminars i always been in the

nra show that's national restaurant association show it has been a learning process more than

than being just at the beginning we have made some mistakes we have learned every every other thing

and we're trying to you know make our best but education first and that's what we did uh since

the beginning can you tell me a little bit about the menu the menu our main um item is pizza you

know brick oven 800 degrees it's kind of the style that we have done since the beginning we also have

added a couple of appetizers not fried food that's one of the biggest challenge that not doing fried

appetizers like puerto rico that's very common to see in restaurants and then um we have added

uh salmon tuna is really good people love it those type things that goes well with the wines

um that we have here right now tell me about the pasta is it freshly prepared here or do you buy it

from where locally where they freshly prepared we have a a girl that makes our pasta and there's

other pasta that we buy it with a with a supplier also we have a gluten-free pasta we do a beets

uh completely gluten-free and also mac and cheese gluten-free so it's that's cauliflower base so

that's a really nice you know extra item so for people that are allergic to gluten or sensitive

or they want to stay in a healthier you know kind of diet you know and um and also we have

cauliflower crust for a pizza cauliflower crust pizza is probably delicious but the pizza that you

make here with flour

imported Italian flowers it's so good that's our signature you know we use a double zero flour

that's the thinnest flower available it's very light when you taste it we don't alter that too

much it's just about time and quality of the ingredients we don't even use oil or sugar to

to work the dough so it's the lightest dough that you could have tell us about upcoming events

because you used to do events and

COVID killed that I'm sure but I remember the jazz event what do you have planned for the after

COVID events we did an area a new area during COVID that we called it Pimentown and that area

eventually is going to start to produce some events like we did and you know you know what

the kind of events that we did before normally Jazz Fest we we love Jazz here so we were

doing Charlie Sepulveda William Sepeda like every other week and but obviously for COVID reason

that's top so that area of Pimentown it's um it's an outdoor area that we didn't have and we build

it for for COVID people wanted to be outside there are seven containers you could sit with

your family or your friends inside a container it fits about eight people

um you make your own party you make your group you you have a TV you listen the music that you

want and then you order food and drinks from the restaurant so we have seven of that so we could

feed easily 60 people in inside the containers with air conditioner and everything so it's it's

like being in a private room inside the restaurant and in the center it has a garden area that in

that garden area eventually if we going to play music we're gonna do it there's a lot of people

going to do it there it's going to be great I'm really looking forward to that uh we're going to

do a little tour now okay uh so we are entering the restaurant uh like I told you it's like a

speakeasy kind of ambience and um right here you can see like we structure a little bit the tables

we separated a little bit more um before COVID it was more everyone worked together and people love

it we managed to make it a really nice good space and then here there's a cabin that where the coffee

shop the coffee bar was um placed but it's a really nice private room it fills around six

people and it has been a success during Kobe times because people love their own private space and

then you could see all the wines that the wine list it's it's more than two

250 labels so it's uh if you love wine it's a great place to be you know I remember from the

beginning you had a good wine list and you also had a good scotch list and a good beer list it's

really nice yes we are into craft beer that's one of the things that really like uh since the

beginning and we have managed to maintain you know a decent amount of labels of beers and scotch like

you said um rums you know it's specialty

rums and scotch that's what we like to have here okay so we we'll walk through the dining room and

now we're looking at the outdoor part of the kitchen where people can watch and and that

beautiful oven the kitchen it's an open space kitchen like if you are in the restaurant you

could see what the staff is doing uh there you see the oven it's a brick oven then that makes

you the pizza in about 90 seconds and that's the true Neapolitan style pizza we have also

like this area where we have a griddle and the stove that we prepare the other you know steaks

salmons uh pasta so it's it's kind of cool that the people can see what actually the kitchen staff

is and chef are doing in the in the kitchen for for the clients so we're walking back through the

restaurant that's another wine cellar we built this after we remodeled a little bit the pizzeria

and that's a really good

space and then when you enter the door you get to see the cava right away so i like that and

the temperature is different in there yes it's a control temperature about 60 degrees okay so we're

going outside so we're back in the gas station so if you see some some of our pictures it's a

gas station there's cars parking and filling up with gas you know your accounting must be a little

difficult that's a challenge you know because there's so much invoices different different kind

of vendors like there's some like even companies um we have to divide between departments what it's

going to the pizzeria what is going to the gas station because distributors see like two accounts

and some of them see like one account so it's uh it's a challenge definitely what are the hours of

the restaurant

we are opening from 12 to 9 30 at the moment at the beginning we were opening before kobe

until 11 p.m but we will get to to that um hour but for now we are closing the kitchen at 9 30.

all right so we're in the courtyard and so we have on our left we have all of these beautiful little

meeting rooms yeah so on the inside you have ac units you have a table of about eight to ten

people everyone

is sp 我們這個玉座 предлаг recipiet Totally

okay all right i'm larger than 10 feet so my Center Phonifique we are in the corner one

we are actually we are at a kind of raised space forerkast or something like that

so it's we're from the centre of the studio and we are about medicine class

!!!!!

Yeah!

I love it!

What's your teamerto know these things?

wood for reserve bells brewing and that one is cc1 companies and you see charles isaac there

it's a champagne the glen road another scotch so we have created here a little town the bar

it's a april spritz bar people like said they have the brandings suppliers has support us

in this project and it has worked out pretty well because it's an event outdoor space that we

didn't have before it's really magnificent that you can do this and with all the friggin design

i mean you know we we have reinforced in in fact this podcast uh it promotes to our rainforest in

guests and i'm real familiar with uh the hurricanes and zika and covid and and it's really

remarkable to see a business like this that has uh done so done so well with all those disasters

you're working through all those challenges yes especially since uh 2017 it has been more

challenged after maria and you know that you have been living here but suddenly everything politics

or earthquakes that we didn't have before and go with but you know it's like people likes uh to

come here

it's it's all about the clients you know support us and there's a lot of people that during kobe

times they were coming like every week to keep supporting us and that's why we are here these

two little containers how are they held down for storms right now we haven't had any storm

after we put the containers but they have a really built base around it and they're heavy you know

it's

been a lot of work and it's been a lot of hard work and it will be hard to move it you know

if it's another maria i don't know because that was really hard but for now we we haven't had that

issue i don't know what more you can do here it's really magnificent but any other ideas you have

coming up wow and that's a good question because i think i almost ran out of ideas here uh we have

been very creative since the beginning you know and uh a lot of friends give give me some ideas and

for a moment i think with with this we did it we did this one year ago so inside the restaurant we

don't have any more space it's impossible to to get another space like like we did uh during the

five years we are we're uh running the business um maybe the potential is in this area of pimentown

that we could we could build it a little bit more like finish all the bar area some people have told

me that we could do two stories of containers that would be a little bit uh be a little scary

um you talked about investors coming in are these the sponsored containers or other stuff

no no investors is going to be for future projects that are not here in this location so this one uh

we're doing it with the support of the sponsors the companies that i told you a couple of minutes

ago but yeah it's not about partners here so and you can't talk about the future projects

we are we are opening placita santurce so that's uh where jos enrique restaurant was a couple of

years ago and then we took that space and we rebuilt it it's really it's really nice looking

and we are hoping to open january so that's a project that within two months we were expect to

opening and that'll be italian that's a pizzeria yes so there's no pizzeria per se in placida

there's no options of pastas and the menu that we have here so it's a nice compliment for placidaria

and i know um it's going to be a a great project it's going to be a huge success too i'm sure

well i don't want to take up any more of your time it was a really really nice

been getting a chance to interview you anything you want to add

i really appreciate all your support william because i know since the beginning when you

discover this little space you have been a supporter of us and there's a lot of people

that come to yours and they they say me oh william sent me from rainforest scene so i

didn't even know they even did that yeah so you know thank you for the recommendation

for the opportunity to to make this podcast and um we're here whatever you need you know

that's that's what we do here uh we we like the people to appreciate you know an awkward location

but like quality and uh at the same time uh really good coffee really good pizza pastas

great wines great beer so we're trying to do our best here and our staff it's unbelievable they're

trying to make the best also for for our clients when we get when they get here they can have the

best experience

all right so this is the conclusion to the podcast that we made with danielle at cafe estacion

do you hear the cookies in the background it's so peaceful here at the rainforest inn our next

playing podcast will be up in the mountains at a coffee grower it's possible it'll be a vacation

for the owners of the rainforest inn

yeah we're going somewhere nice yay all right thank you very much for listening to our podcast

we hope you enjoyed it and we'll see you next time

bye

you