 Good morning everyone. My name is Colleen again y'all. I'm the program compliance specialist with the city of columbia's office of business opportunities and we thank you all for joining us today on the grand opening of arepa south by paella south and this business was created off of paella south about six years ago by dr. Pedro and Ana figurito and a figurito as a food truck business. Dr. figurito who was an orthopedic surgeon came from venezuela to columbia to share his passion in venezuelan cuisine and also paella south is most of you know if you haven't visited they also are staple at at the soda city market on saturdays they have a food truck there as well. As much success that they achieved as a food truck vendor they decided to transform into a brick and mortar business as we're standing here today and the purpose of this is to locate here at the main street district to share that passion of venezuelan and spanish cuisine and as most of you know that the city of columbia is a melting pot for diverse businesses we have different cultures and backgrounds here in the area that they share their cultures and their cuisine with many of our residents. The figuritos figuritos are another example of people who are migrating from different countries all over the world that come to columbia to share their cultures and traditions. On behalf of our mayor dan rickerman and the city council we would like to welcome you all to the main street area and we also wish you the much success in your business and at this time i will ask mr matt kennel to make some remarks. Thank you very much kalina and thank you the city of columbia and annan pedro it's just so exciting to be here in the heart of the main street district uh this morning. We are just so excited to see businesses thrive to think that somebody could start at the soda city market prove themselves get a following get lines every saturday and then move on to our bricks and mortar restaurant that's really what it's all about and we're just we're just so excited about their success story here paella south has been a must try at soda city market for a long time and just to have the minds behind that business put their business plan to this business is just incredible and to see the city supporting that in the office of business opportunities in our city council uh it's just great when when a good plan comes together. As kalina said we're really main street district is really becoming an international corridor um we couldn't have even imagined this 20 years ago when the revitalization process started but it's a very real thing and and we're just creating a place for everybody main street has always been the place the melting pot for columbia and we're just so happy that that we're realizing that now from korean to ty to now venezuelan the main street district has just seen a flurry of new businesses and i think it's really a testament to the people that have worked hard over a lot of years and now the people that come to main street as their preferred destination and not only visit but actually live in the district and the surrounding neighborhoods of columbia the demand has been proven for the diverse options for dining we're seeing that every saturday at soda city market and now with these new restaurants opening up it seems like every month that are just more and more diverse and bringing more and more culture and diversity to our area and we're just thrilled to be the destination that's really attracting these businesses because let me tell you the welcome mat is certainly out for you i want to thank you personally for believing in the main street district that means a lot to us that you've decided it's a locate here and that you're now going to fill this space with joy for the whole community and delicious eats which i'm sure our staff will be eating at very often i can guarantee you that so welcome to the main street district we're so glad you're here and we wish you well in business and believe me we are here not only today but in the future to support what you're doing so congratulations thank you very much thank you and now we have peija and adolfo you know to make some remarks thank you so much for being here it is a pleasure for us to have this grand opening after six and a half years we started in soda city with just few customers now we have more than 500 people coming every month so we're very proud to have a different options apart from the paella and it's venezuela food and i have to say that this is the only place in the city where you can find arepas every day okay so just go and find the arepas not only saturdays but from monday to friday okay so welcome and i want to thank the city council members the office business opportunities opportunity representatives and our customers that have supported supported us like for so long also our daughters or marias that have been with us all the time and helping us very hard soda city market of course because without them i don't think we're gonna make it i mean we would make it so i'm sorry for my english i'm still improving it but yes we're very proud of soda city market vendors and we will always be part of soda city we're gonna be there with the paella's every saturdays not because we have now a restaurant we want to forget about soda city but we're gonna be there saturdays but also here in the restaurant okay so um and we have also things as Sergio one of our friends that he used to work in the city and he's he was very supported as well and uh all our friends and all the people that is working now with us mr ryan and mr ryan yes of course all of you that has been very supported um we to get to this place we transition a very interesting path with all the help of the city especially what's the name of ryan and the mr brown mr brown that was the financial assessor that's what you say yeah he helped us a lot and he was like an open our eyes to this business so we are very happy to meet him during this transition and all the people that was very supported here okay so well welcome we have some appetizers so you can try our food and i hope to see you every day here thank you