North Bay Woman

S P R I N G 2 0 1 4 | NORTH BAY WOMAN 33 The female entrepreneur behind Sol Food's addictive Puerto Rican cuisine By Penny Popken Photos by Stuart Lirette M arisol Hernandez didn't set out to be a restaurant owner, much less the proprietor of one of the Bay Area's cult dining establishments where hungry patrons form lines that snake out the door and around the corner. Twelve years ago Sol – as she's known to friends and family – was happily styling children's hair in Corte Madera and, in her free time, inviting friends and family over to her San Rafael house for home-cooked meals. One day her sister convinced her to serve some of her signature dishes in a booth at a special event in San Francisco. Hernandez accepted the challenge, borrowing kitchen space from a Marin caterer and additional food prep space at a friend's closed bar in San Francisco. "Friends and family pitched in. It was crazy," she recalls. "I now know what it takes to do an event like that." Emboldened by the experience, Hernandez began selling food at the downtown San Rafael Farmer's Market in 2003, and her home-style Puerto Rican cuisine soon developed a loyal following. "We had a really good response," she recalls, "and an opportunity for space came up." And so Sol Food, her eponymous and ultra-popular mini-chain of restaurants featuring Puerto Rican cuisine with a bit of a Marin twist was born. Sol Food currently occupies three locations in San Rafael – the iconic green building at the corner of 3 rd and Lincoln, La Bodega, the to-go shop next door, and a small spot with a patio just around the corner on 4 th Street. Last year, Hernandez, her husband, Victor Cielo, and their CFO/silent partner opened yet another Sol Food on Miller Avenue in Mill Valley. In late 2012, the group also opened a small store across the street from the flagship Sol Food on 3 rd Street. Called Conchita (after Hernan- dez's late paternal grandmother in Puerto Rico), the shop carries locally made goods, retail gifts and accessories – many of them crafted by local artists – along with Sol Food hot sauce and salad dressing. It was the original Conchita, whom Hernandez called Abuela, who introduced Hernandez to her father's native Puerto Rican food. Though she's a Marin native who grew up in San Rafael's Gerstle Park, Hernandez made several childhood trips to Puerto Rico to visit her father and her father's family in Santurce, a neighborhood of San Juan. "She would cook for me when I was staying at her house," Hernandez recalls of her grandmother. Like every other Puerto Rican grandmother, she was a great cook. In 1994, when Hernandez was 20, she moved to Puerto Rico for two years. When she came back to Marin, she brought her Puerto Rican boyfriend with her and the two spent a lot of time recreating favorite Puerto Rican dishes: "I learned a lot of > Above: Sol Hernandez oversees operations at Sol Food in San Rafael. At right: Bistec sandwich with thinly sliced steak, sautéed onions, avocado, Swiss cheese and garlic mayo.

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