When it came to building his business, Alex Dorros found his biggest challenge was finding affordable kitchen space. He even had to put his business Siembra, which sells Peruvian and Columbian food, on hold at one point because he couldn’t find a space that met his needs.
Now, through our Seattle Restored Program, he’s able to run his business through a commercial kitchen space in Lake City, allowing him to grow his client base and even tap into new business models.
“Having this kitchen allows me to tap back into engaging with people while I’m also focusing on wholesale with the arepas,” said Dorros.
Seattle Restored, managed in partnership with Good Business Network of Washington, connects small businesses with vacant commercial spaces for pop-up activations. We expanded the program to Lake City in 2025, including the commercial space for food businesses. By providing access to these spaces, we’re helping entrepreneurs of all backgrounds gain access to commercial spaces and pilot their concepts without the financial burden that usually comes with starting a business.
Siembra, which means to sow seeds in Spanish, started as “a big pivot” during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dorros had just started working in the restaurant industry and the restaurant he worked at closed.
“After two months I was sitting there, twiddling my thumbs trying to figure out what to do with my energy,” he explained. “I got together with my mom to cook for our neighbors and the community and that grew and blossomed into a weekly pop-up.”
They started with arepas, corn griddle cakes that are traditional to Colombia and Venezuela. They use local, organic corn that they stone grind from scratch and stuff the arepas with braised meats and veggies. At the time, Dorros only had a few months’ experience in the food industry. Building Siembra meant learning a lot of lessons as he went.
“We were just figuring it out, going from week to week and trying to screw things up a little bit less and focus on honoring the integrity of what these flavors we’re trying to represent,” he said.
As he learned, Dorros continued to grow Siembra. When restaurants started opening up again post-pandemic, he went back to work to get more restaurant experience while running Siembra as a part-time side job. He also started cooking through Good Food Kitchen, a food assistance program part of Good Business Network of Washington, to share his food through mutual aid and hunger assistance. It was through that relationship he heard about the opportunity to use a shared kitchen space through Seattle Restored. The timing was perfect, since he’d put his business on pause because it was so hard to find a kitchen space that fit his needs. The ability to utilize the kitchen space allowed Dorros to restart selling at pop-ups while building a wholesale business.
“The two kind of feed into each other. The more people I can get in front of at markets and events, that’s going to build success in the wholesale world that I’m just getting into,” he explained. “I’m saving thousands of dollars through this program, and that’s going to be incredibly meaningful to the whole broad trajectory of getting launched with my business.”
Dorros says a brick-and-mortar space for Siembra is a possibility, but for now, he’s happy with the stability and flexibility the kitchen space provides, allowing him to be mobile and meet people where they are while building up the wholesale side of his business. The stability means he can focus on telling his story through his dishes, sharing a piece of home with some customers while serving as “an ambassador” to a part of the world where others may not have as much exposure.
“My favorite thing is sharing these flavors with somebody who’s never experienced them whatsoever,” he said. “You can see a spark in their eyes; they’re building connections and thinking about how these foods might tie to other food memories or experiences they’ve had.”
Seattle Restored is part of our work to create economic opportunities and reduce the racial wealth gap. We support businesses at every stage, from pop-ups to asset ownership, helping them stabilize and thrive. Seattle Restored focuses on providing access to commercial spaces and allowing entrepreneurs to test their business model without the financial risk of starting a business. Since its launch in 2021, the program transformed more than 100 vacant storefronts into pop-ups, boosting local business sales and foot traffic in neighborhood shopping districts. In 2025, we activated 72 pop-ups in Downtown and Lake City.