The factor is, Mr. Rivera by no means had any intention of promoting meat.
A New York Metropolis native and barbecue aficionado, he grew to become obsessive about a piquant sauce he tasted in 2009 at a Mets recreation. He got down to recreate it at dwelling, a quest that led him to stop a safe job as an govt chef and enter culinary college.
By 2019, he was advertising and marketing his personal sauces, which evoke flavors of conventional Puerto Rican cooking. He used the Father & Son’s moniker, with a label that includes a snapshot of him and his son stirring a pot.
Then the pandemic and an harm stored him dwelling. Mr. Rivera trawled on-line for insights.
In 2021, he began promoting his sauces on the weekends on the Gun Hill Brewery within the Allerton neighborhood of the Bronx till it closed final month. A pal introduced a smoker for meat to make it simpler for purchasers to style sauce samples. Meals ran out in three hours, he stated.
“The meals outshone the sauce,” he stated. “The breadwinner was the meals.”
What Mr. Rivera assumed could be a weekend one-off is now on the verge of changing into one thing else, he stated: a full-time small enterprise, with assist from his spouse, Jasity Soltero, their 17-year-old son Mason, and a few cousins as wanted. Mr. Rivera has developed a menu that includes his tackle Puerto Rican classics like roast pork or yellow rice with pigeon peas. He needs to remind people who Puerto Rico’s Indigenous individuals additionally barbecued meats.
“He has the best-tasting brisket I ever had,” stated Miguel Antonio Salamanca, a chef, at a latest group competition at Co-op Metropolis. He added: “I felt this was the place to be.”
Relying on how a lot meat goes within the sandwich and the standard of the minimize, the value of the meal in New York Metropolis can vary from as little as Mr. Rivera’s providing, which is his greatest vendor, to over $20 elsewhere.
Challenges and surprises abound, together with fluctuating meat costs and rising prices for diesel gas and paper merchandise, stated Ben Goldberg, co-founder of the New York Meals Truck Affiliation. The pandemic led to extra outside occasions, which might truly be extra worthwhile for meals distributors than road gross sales, he stated.
Even so, Mr. Rivera’s enterprise takes loads of work. Generally he prepares meals at a business kitchen in Westchester County, which prices him $100 to $300 a go to. He usually sleeps in his pickup truck in a single day when he cooks meat for an occasion, and he tailors sure menus. For Co-op Metropolis, he added a meat and three-side combo plate for about $20, and to maintain households glad, he supplied scorching canine, fries and juice bins.
Mr. Rivera has to remain nimble, like when his pickup truck broke down and a rental value him $500 for the weekend, although he solely wanted it for a day and a half. His favourite brioche rolls are usually not all the time accessible, so he would possibly swap to a less expensive choice final minute.
However there are shiny spots: His plan to go full time after three itinerant years retains him motivated. His first worker exterior the household, an apprentice, might be a assist.
“What’s stopping me is I’m at that apex the place I can see the view from the highest,” Mr. Rivera stated. “Now I would like a employees I can practice and stroll away for a day.”
Produced by Eden Weingart, Andrew Hinderaker and Dagny Salas. Improvement by Gabriel Gianordoli and Aliza Aufrichtig.
