Who would have thought that a 40+ year family recipe would turn into such a huge
success! Follow us along as we take you through the years.

Our story begins back in 1968 when Eloy Carrera, the creator of Chef Eloy’s Kickin’ Salsas began experimenting with different fresh salsa recipes. In 1970, Chef Eloy decided to begin serving his Xtra Hot salsa to patrons at “Carlos Gardel” restaurant, located on Columbia Road in the Adams Morgan section of Washington, DC. Owning a restaurant takes a lot of hard work, long hours and a lot of sacrifice. Chef Eloy and his late wife, Adela were no strangers to hard work. Everything that they put into their business was for the good of the family. Long hours away from their five children was hard on everyone but they had to do what it took in order to be come successful. All of the children worked at the restaurant over the years and helped to contribute to the family run business.

The years took its toll on Chef Eloy & Adela and after years of long hours away from the kids, they chose to close the restaurant in 1986.  Chef Eloy’s salsa was such a huge hit back then that he constantly had old customers begging for his salsa! He enjoyed making salsa for anyone who would ask for it. Finally in 2000, Chef Eloy decided to try selling his salsas at a few local farmers markets in Northern Virginia with his current wife, Beatrice. In 2004, his daughter, Sandra Stickovitch, jumped on board and began selling at a few more local farmers markets. That is when they decided to really try to make this product grow and participated in over 25+ fall festivals & events per year to really get their product out to as many new customers as they could. With consistent repeat customers coming back week after week at their farmers markets and seeing how popular their product was at the numerous shows they participated in, they knew Chef Eloy’s salsas would do well in a local retail outlet. They began approaching local retail locations, farm stands to see what kind of interest there would be from a retail standpoint. Sales were great and consistent with new orders coming in week after week. That’s when they got involved with one of the local WHOLE FOODS stores in the area. One of the local stores took a chance on them (thanks Fair Lakes!) and sales went crazy! Little by little they approached other local WHOLE FOODS stores in the area and every store was willing to give a local producer a chance.

Now, we are proud to say we are delivering our product to the WHOLE FOODS warehouse for distribution to all WHOLE FOODS stores in Maryland, DC & Virginia and hoping to expand even more!