Sandra Cordero is the owner of Gasolina Cafe, a Woodland Hills restaurant with Spanish-influenced food. She is half Dutch and half Spanish, having spent parts of her life in Amsterdam, Galicia in Spain and New York City before moving to Los Angeles. Cordero founded Gasolina Cafe in 2015. She also is a founding member of RE:Her, a nonprofit supporting women-owned and operated restaurants.
What inspired you to start your business?
I started working in restaurants when I was 15. I was a server. It grew from there, being a server for many years. By the time I was 18, I was working in three different restaurants with very different styles. Then I went from serving for years, going to school and (eventually) I went into managing. When I was 19, I was like, “I’m going to own my own place one day.” I just fell in love with the industry of hospitality, nurturing people, feeding people, giving people a place to gather and have joyous moments in life.
Do you like being your own boss? Do you ever think about trading it for a steady paycheck?
I think it was kind of inevitable. I’m a natural leader that likes to tell people what to do. I even see it in my own daughter. She’s 10 now and it’s very funny when you have kids, and you see them have similar traits that you have. So yes, I’ve worked for other people. I guess I’m a natural entrepreneur and leader and that led to making it into my profession. It took a little while to get there.
What’s the best aspect of running your own business?
The customers when you’ve been able to give them truly memorable moments. I think a lot of good memories in life are made around the dining table. We celebrate birthdays. engagements, weddings; we’re a big part of people’s lives. We’re like a real neighborhood place, we’re able to really create a second home for many of our patrons. Being able to create that for people is for me, the most satisfying (aspect).
What’s the biggest challenge your business has faced?
We got asked to open (a new location) in this big mall in Oxnard (in 2017). They made us a really good offer to build it out and help with all that. We put all our savings in there to open a second location. Literally a week after we opened the Thomas Fire hit. Even though our place didn’t burn, there was no business for six months. We had to close it, we had to pull it. That was definitely the biggest challenge. I’m still dealing with that, because sadly, a big corporation is trying to come after us for back rent while there was no way we could keep the restaurant open because there were no customers in the center. That was definitely the biggest challenge. We went back to one location, from two back to one, and then we moved in November 2019 to a much bigger space, the space we’re in now, to have indoor dining and to have a full-service restaurant.
What’s your favorite dish that you serve? What’s a customer favorite?
One of my favorites is the paella de carne. We do it with brisket, morcilla and chorizo and we add romano beans or navy beans. It’s fully loaded with meat and the morcilla gives it this really nice rich earthiness and it melts into the rice. I really got into paella cooking here in L.A. For brunch, I would say patatas bravas is the customers’ favorite and at nighttime, I would say paella is the customers’ favorite.
How has the pandemic affected you and your business?
With the pandemic, when there was no front of the house and back of the house. I was making servers chop vegetables and help cook and kitchen was helping packing and delivering. It’s all hands on deck, and nobody is above or beneath. We just needed to get it done as a group and I think when I saw that last year and how strong it made our team, because a lot of (big) places have a disconnect between front of the house and the kitchen, I kind of wanted to try to eliminate that (disconnect).
What advice would you give someone who wanted to start their own business?
Work in a lot of different restaurants because you’re going to have to do all of it. From washing dishes, to cleaning bathrooms, to bartending, to serving, to jumping in on the line. As a small business owner, you need to be able to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty.