By Michele Miller
What’s What New Port Richey
June 14, 2023
The pastries are to die for. That was the consensus of more than a few stopping on a Saturday morning to sample Anais Cancel’s confectionaries at Dulza’s Puerto Rican Catering & Pastry booth at the Bexley Market on the Lawn.
Try a small square of the Bizcocho Mojaditi and you might be inclined to pony up for an entire Puerto Rican Cake to take home. Or maybe you’re better tempted by the Guava and Cheese Flan or the Raspberry or Bavarian Cream pastries that would pair perfectly with that cup of morning coffee or tea.
Yeah, we went home with some of those, too.
Try it. Like it. Buy it.
That’s the thought behind offering up free samples, said Aisha Martinez, the marketing person for the homespun baked goods whipped up by her partner, Anais Cancel.
Dulza’s is a niche business that offers up a welcome taste of home to some and a new culinary experience for others shopping community markets.
Cancel, whose homeland is Puerto Rico, followed in her father’s and grandmother’s steps in becoming a pastry chef. Her pastries and traditional dishes are mostly derived from family recipes that are baked in a commercial kitchen and packaged and brought to markets and served at catered events and one area restaurant. Flan de Vainilla is on the dessert menu of La Casa Catracha, an authentic Honduran restaurant located on Armenia Avenue in Tampa. Regular customers follow them from market to market just for the Puerto Rican Cake, Martinez said, “Because you can’t find anything like it anywhere.”
“This is all her. This is her dream. She’s following her dream”, Martinez said, adding that a future goal is to grow their business into a food truck or maybe even a brick-and-mortar storefront.
In the meantime, these community markets are a building block. A way to grow a customer base. Get their names out there.
A stepping stone from here to there.
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Budding entrepreneurs such as Martinez and Cancel are getting an introduction and a boost from a growing pop-up community market industry. That’s evidenced by the sheer number of markets cropping up and a burgeoning supply of budding and seasoned vendors.
Many of these fledgling businesses get support along with a space courtesy of Cheryl Taylor, owner and event planner of Community Markets & Events LLC which is based out of New Port Richey.
“This is an industry that happened by accident”, said Taylor, who pooled her experience as a business development strategist, public relations manager, and events coordinator to launch the growing pop-up circuit. Presently she oversees 18 markets in Pasco and Pinellas Counties.
Many of Taylor’s vendors came into their own during the pandemic when people took to creating as a way to keep busy, try something new, or as a side hustle to supplement their incomes, she said.
They know how to make, bake or create and might have a wonderful product, but not all of them are familiar with the business side, Taylor said.
“I want them to be successful.”
“Cheryl has been a great mentor”, Martinez said. “She’s given us advice and guidance on pricing, and marketing because she really cares.”
Taylor also hosts occasional workshops on subjects such as marketing and social media that are based on surveys sent out to vendors. She works the host booth at the markets where she regularly fields inquiries from potential vendors, and checks on vendors as well as the water in the market’s puppy pool. She also promotes the markets on social media sites and local publications such as What’s What NPR.
“She’s very organized. She’s helped us reach new people”, said Stephanie Marsh, of Bling Jewelry. “It’s much easier than trying to market yourself.”
One newer vendor, Natali Garcia started making organic candles and wax melts for fun and for gifts for friends and family who started telling her, “You should sell this.”
That dining room table project has grown onto a side venture called, Make Scents, and an expanded product line that now includes soaps and body scrubs. Thoughts of the future include a storefront on Main Street in downtown New Port Richey, said Garcia, who works Monday-Friday as an Administrative Assistant.
“I’m doing pretty well being a new company. You always expect to lose money on your first few markets but that didn’t happen”, she said. “This is my fifth one (market), and for me to be making a profit as a new business is amazing.”
Check out the new Market Days Advertising Section to find markets to shop or sell at.
At any given event you might be treated to a card trick by Savvas the Magician, a stay-at-home dad, who is looking for bookings for birthday parties and community and corporate events while selling magic merchandise for aspiring performers.
“This is an easy way to promote myself”, said Savvas, a former bartender who started experimenting with magic tricks as a way to increase tips. It worked.
“It’s fun,”, he said. “I love what I do.”
Kelly Huff regularly sets up shop selling specialty hotdogs, street corn, pulled pork, nachos and other food items, often with one of her grandchildren in tow.
“I want them to be their own boss”, Huff said. “I wish someone told me that.”
And Jesse and Amanda Combee of Sweet Stop Florida. The couple started experimenting with the freeze-drying process, fell in love with it, then decided to start selling a selection of fruit and sweet products.
“I’m a contractor – so I’m financially independent. I wanted my wife to have her own thing – her own financial independence”, said Combee who was working the Food Truck Rally in Land O’Lakes while Amanda was working a booth at another market location.
“At our first market, we made $700. We didn’t expect that”, he said, adding that between the two of them, they work about 14 markets a month in three counties.
While they do have an online shop, they enjoy selling at the local markets, Combee said.
“I love the community outreach. Meeting people face to face. I think there’s no better way to promote your business.”
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Community outreach is an essential component – one that is of mutual benefit.
Vendors are able to meet potential customers where they live, play and work, whether it’s “On the Lawn” in the Bexley community, in the parking lot at an apartment complex, or at the neighborhood rec center or county park. Sometimes the events are planned as a way to help generate foot traffic at other businesses, such as The Hub at Bexley.
Markets that are held at venues such as Jay B. Starkey Wilderness Park and Pasco County Rec Centers serve to elevate underutilized parks, Taylor said, adding, “The purpose is to show the beautiful places in Pasco County.”
The markets, as with other independent events that have been hosted at the parks, such as Ren Fest, Blues Concerts and BBQ Fests, spur people to visit that might not otherwise step foot in a park or rec center, said Mike Walcott, Recreation Coordinator for Pasco County Parks.
“People might drive by these parks and see people playing basketball or doing athletics and they might not be into that or hiking the nature trails, but if they see a Food Truck Rally, then they might just say, “Hey, that’s for me”, and stop in,” he said, adding that he was especially excited to have the markets at Elsie Logan Park (in Shady Hills) and Odessa Community Center – two parks that don’t get traffic but might get more once people know about them.
Shoppers get to support local merchants and chat with vendors and perhaps neighbors they aren’t acquainted with at markets held in residential communities..
“We’re a community coming together for a community”, said Donna Morroco, who with her husband Jim is a market mainstay, serving up homemade refreshments at the Thirsty Lemonade stand.
The Morrocos have been market vendors on and off since the 1990s when their children were born and Donna became a stay-at-home mom while Jim worked nights for the post office.
“This is something we thought we could do together,” Donna said.
Over the years they have sold baseball accessories, silver jewelry, calligraphy signs, painted plaster statues, face masks during Covid, and catnip toys, something they still sell because those are popular items, she said.
“But lemonade is our home.”
Ask about the secret family recipe and Jim is quick to comply.
“Sure, I’ll tell you”, he says, with a grin, noting that the recipe calls for “water, lemons and sugar.”
But that’s as far as he’ll go.
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Note – For information about Community Markets and events, visit, communitymarketsandevents.com.
