Airport Experience® News - ACDBE & Small Business Issue 2024

Guzmán says she received valuable coaching from the MIA concessions team, including the advice to attend the Airport Experience Conference. She showed up with her empanada cart and, after a steep learning curve on the logistics of exhibiting in a hotel space, began introducing her concept to airports and concessionaires. Guzmán remembers her grassroots outreach efforts, actively cornering people in the Experience Hall and convincing them to try an empanada. Through that first conference and subsequent ones, Guzmán built Half Moon Empanadas’ reputation as a solid business proposition with strong airport sales. She was ready to expand. Spreading The Empanada Joy But expansion didn’t come easy. In 2017 and 2018 Guzmán bid on three airport opportunities – at Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC), San Francisco International Airport (SFO) and Denver International (DEN). She lost on all three bids. “Those three bids gave me a lot of insight into how the airports worked,” she says, noting that she realized she needed to switch from producing empanadas on-site to shipping them from a central kitchen. She fielded hard questions from industry colleagues, which forced her to refine her business model. Meantime, her Miami fortunes were taking off. She expanded not only at MIA but elsewhere in the city as well. The temptation was to stay local, Guzmán says, but she still believed airports were a prime fit for her brand. Guzmán eventually connected with fellow ACDBE-certified operators Gonzalo de la Melena Jr. of Emerging Airport Ventures and LeeAnna Fresquez of Fresquez Companies . The three partnered to bid on an opportunity at DEN. This time around the team won, and Half Moon Empanadas opened in 2023. Guzmán also noticed that some operators faced challenges in opening during the pandemic, and was aggressive in her offers to transition struggling locations to Half Moon Empanadas. “That’s how we started getting opportunities with licenses,” she says. “Today we work with all the major primes. We don’t give exclusivity even though they asked for it.”

AT A GLANCE NAME OF COMPANY: Half Moon Empanadas HEADQUARTERS: Miami, FL

FOUNDER(S): Pilar Guzmán, Juan Zavala YEAR OF ENTRY INTO AIRPORTS: 2015 NUMBER OF AIRPORT LOCATIONS: 19 (by end of 2024) AIRPORTS: MIA, DEN, DCA, MSP, FLL, BNA, ORD, PHX, PSP, AUS (opening soon), RDU (opening soon), PVD (opening soon) CONCEPTS OPERATED: Half Moon Empanadas FUTURE PLANS: Expand operations to more U.S. airports, with the ultimate goal of locations in all major U.S. airports.

By the end of 2024, Half Moon Empanadas is expected to be in 13 airports with 19 total locations. About half are owned and operated by the company; the others operate under license agreements. Guzmán says there is “a debate in my head” about which is the preferred arrangement, but as she gains more experience, she’s leaning toward owned enterprises. “I will continue to license – it’s not something that I’m stopping – but I feel more brave now, more clear that I can actually run a store. I didn’t feel like that a year ago,” she says, noting that building a team outside her home market was daunting. “I’m open to every opportunity as long as it makes sense for the brand and it makes sense numbers-wise,” she adds.

Extending The Reach Guzmán is looking to grow in the airport concessions industry, but she’s also eager to share her expertise with others, particularly women and Latinos. “We’re very competitive, but this is an industry that has been so supportive, with mentorship, with opening doors, with taking the calls,” she says, recalling the myriad industry people who shared their expertise with her over the past decade. “I am appreciative of being in such a small industry that gives you such great opportunities,” she says. “My only call to everybody is, we’ve got to open up to more minority-owned small businesses.”. Bigger picture, Guzmán eventually wants to create a program that funds Latina entrepreneurs in the United States. She also envisions a line of frozen empanadas for distribution in grocery stores, and possibly franchising on the street. Airports, Guzmán says, have been the “sweet spot” for the brand so far, and she wants to be in all the major airports in the country. To achieve her goals, Guzmán says she’ll continue to be “very, very pushy.” “I don’t know what word to use in English,” she continues, “but I have to be on top of these people with a smile, and always ask, ‘Can I have it?”

Left: Guzmán attended her first Airport Experience Conference in 2017, and credits the conference with giving her the networking possibilities needed to grow her business.

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AX NEWS JULY/AUGUST 2024