ROANOKE, Va. – If you build a better burger, the world will beat a path to your door.
In this case, it’s a farm-to-table, Columbian-inspired burger. And people are, in fact, lining up for it.
“So when we first had the idea we were like yeah. It was 800 Square feet. We’ll just start there and then people were waiting outside of the door and we were like ‘Oh my gosh this is a good problem,’” said Kat Pascal, remembering how things were when she and her partners opened the first of their two restaurants in a small space in Vinton.
Kat Pascal was stuck with the happy dilemma that every entrepreneur dreams of.
Hers is FarmBurguesa – a restaurant with locations in Vinton and Roanoke’s Grandin Village. Don’t worry if you don’t know how to say it – after all, it’s a made-up word.
“What if we name this what if we name it that and Jimmy is so silly and so funny what if we just combine two names like hamburguesa, which is hamburger in Spanish, and farm and make Farmbergesa, and we are like ‘What, well maybe you’re onto something,’” she said.
The name stuck, and a clever, locally created logo helped complete the public’s perception.
“Once we created the word, the overall foundation of what we wanted to see - everything stemmed from there to make it tie back to the farm to table - to the community, to culture and heritage, to entrepreneurship so a lot of things come with that name,” she explained
Sometimes she said she has to pinch herself when she looks around at how things have worked out.
“You wake up and it’s like did we really get to create this?” she said.
“We” refers to Kat and her partner Jimmy Delgado, Ashley Overbay, and her husband Andres Pascal – Kat’s brother.
From local beef to local spices, and family recipes, the idea is to make everything as sustainable and original as possible. Not to mention delicious.
Then there’s the Hispanic connection.
Kat was born and raised in Roanoke. She learned to speak English at Hurt Park Elementary School. But her parents were from Columbia, and many of the current workers have Hispanic roots.
“What you’ll find is that most are bilingual but we feel more comfortable when we’re back here speaking in Spanish to our team members.”
The success comes from more than a clever concept. There’s real work and innovation, like rare press grills, that speed up cooking times. And staff members who can do it all.
“Everybody is cross-trained so the people that can build your burgers can go and take your order and use the point of sale system. They can also go back and start making the sauces. Should we run out,” Pascal said.
Another part of the success is community. There’s “Farmburgives” – where the two restaurants donate to local non-profits.
And Kat started the Latinas Network in 2020, which now has hundreds of Hispanic women helping one another.
“Like I said, I was born and raised here in Roanoke, and being an active member in the community I think is important. I love to see people supporting us, but I also want to make sure that I’m out there supporting them. So, a lot of give-and-take there.”
Community. Heritage. And tasty, original burgers are just part of the recipe for success.
“The key to making your idea work your ideal work is tenacity. I think it’s a think it’s a lot of resilience. A lot of perseverance really,” she said.
But when it all comes together …
“You know so that’s that’s a dream come true I think. I think that’s the American dream.”