Five years ago, empanadas were treats that were difficult to come by in the Mercer County area.
Popular throughout the Latin American world, from the Florida and Texas all the way down Chile, the pockets of dough typically filled with beef, chicken or cheese, then fried or baked, simply had not made it this far north.
Back in 2020, Andrea and Joshua Pantoja knew something that everybody in the area would soon learn. Not that empanadas are delicious; that is simply a fact of life. But what they knew, or at least, what they were counting on, was that empanadas, once offered regularly, would quickly become a favorite snack or meal even for those who had never had one before.
They knew this because when they started their first food truck, Arepa Express, it wasn’t the arepas — a Venezuelan staple, similar to empanadas, but made with corn meal dough — that sold the best. It was the Puerto Rican-style empanadas. (Andrea’s family hails from Venezuela, and Joshua’s from Puerto Rico.)
That being the case, they made the decision to close down, rebrand and relaunch as Hotpanada. They reopened in May 2020 with their new identity.
Five years later, it is easy to say that they made a good decision. Hotpanada is thriving today, a small-business success story all the more remarkable for getting its start during the coronavirus pandemic.
They have done almost all of it while parked in a single location — a parking lot in Hamilton Plaza on White Horse Mercerville Road, what many still may think of as the KMart shopping center, though KMart has been closed for six years.
“We owe so much to the community,” Andrea says. “They support us so much. We see a lot of customers who come by three to five times a week.”
The Pantojas wanted to come up with something special to celebrate their five-year anniversary. They thought big — as in, the biggest ever.
In recent months, they have been perfecting a recipe for what they hope will soon be confirmed as the world’s largest Puerto Rican-style empanada, as certified by the Guinness Book of World Records.
Working at their commissary, the Cherry Street Kitchen in Trenton, they made a series of oversized empanadas, each one larger than the last, but all at least two feet long. They gave these giants a variety of fillings just to see how they would work: beef, cheese, BBQ chicken. Each weighed somewhere between four and five pounds.
They set up a special oversized fryer to do the frying. Once the oil was up to temperature, they gently lowered the first empanada in, measuring in at 26 inches by 10 inches. It bobbed on the surface, gently bubbling.
After less than 10 minutes, the whole thing had a perfect golden crust. Not even a little bit of filling leaked out into the oil. It lost an inch and a half in length during the frying process.
Declaring the first attempt a success, they jumped straight to the largest empanada. And 10 or so minutes after that, that one was ready too — also a success. Cooked, it measured 31 inches in length.
The world record for largest (or longest) empanada is up for debate. Joshua says that the current record holder was baked, not fried, and was shaped more like a square than the typical half-moon shape of an empanada. At any rate, he and Andrea are content to settle for the record of largest Puerto Rican-style empanada ever made.
The first steps in the process of getting certified by Guinness entailed not only successfully making a test empanada, but also filming the attempt so that they could send the video to Guinness for verification.
Once the video is accepted, the next step would involve making another (larger?) empanada with an official Guinness judge as a witness.
Having the record would be a feather in their caps for Andrea and Joshua, but by no means do they need it to validate their success.
The first day they were open, back in May 2020, they sold 17 empanadas. Now, they expect to sell between 450 and 500 empanadas every day they are open — and more on weekends.
“Every year, we have seen growth,” Andrea says.
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The Pantojas reside in Mansfield today, after many years living in Hamilton. Joshua grew up in Trenton, and Andrea in Hamilton, where she went to Nottingham High School.
Mondays and Tuesdays are for prep at Cherry Street Kitchen. They make around 2,500 empanadas for every week, to be sold Wednesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Hamilton Plaza.
Andrea says that they have sold more than 194,000 empanadas since opening, an average of nearly 40,000 a year. Beef is the most popular, accounting for more than a quarter of all empanadas that Hotpanada has ever sold.
But every customer has their favorite among the various varieties, which include chicken, BBQ chicken, Buffalo chicken, Philly cheesesteak and shrimp. Bean and cheese is the most popular variety among vegetarians.
The Pantojas have a saying: Andrea makes everything taste good, and Joshua makes everything look good. Typically, she develops the recipes for the things they sell from the truck. Joshua likes to come up with new ideas for empanadas.
While the majority of items on the menu are regulars, they also add new recipes from time to time. Those that are popular with customers sometimes get promoted as permanent or semi-permanent additions to the menu.
One more recent creation that has been a hit has been the pastelonada. Pastelón is a Puerto Rican dish made with ground beef, cheese and sliced plantains, and the pastelonada is a play on it.
Empanadas can be sweet, too, and one of the most recent permanent additions to the menu is the cannolinada, which as one might expect is an empanada stuffed with cannoli-style filling.
They originally introduced it last year as a seasonal item, but so many customers have been asking for it that they have made it a regular feature for 2025.
Hotpanada remains a two-person operation, as it has been since the beginning. Joshua and Andrea have spent the past five years streamlining their business, learning how to maximize efficiency.
Like most in the food service business, they have had to raise prices slightly in recent years due to inflation. But they strive to provide consistent service and prices without compromising on quality.
“We are also consumers. We’re foodies too,” Joshua says. “When we spend our money, when we go out, we want to get quality food and a quality experience at a fair price. We understand that.”
In addition to regular scheduled hours, the Hotpanada truck is also available to do catering for private events. But not on Sundays. Sundays are reserved for their family, which includes their three children: Junior, 19; Gabriela, 14; and Samantha, 8.
So what’s on the horizon? The next big thing, other than a Guinness record, might be to add a second truck to the fleet. The Pantojas are busy during off hours getting a new truck to hit the road, which they hope will happen soon.
They are also embarking on a new partnership that will see them expand the business to a new customer base: pets!
Starting this spring, dogs visiting Pet Supplies Plus in Hamilton Plaza might be offered a treat: an em-paw-nada.
Sounds tasty!
