About 5 years ago, Juan Zavala had a business idea he just couldn’t get out of his head. On one of his yearly trips back to his native Argentina, he went to a gathering of family and friends, like he usually does when visiting. At one point, one of his cousins asked everyone whether they wanted to order pizza or empanadas. Just about everyone voted for empanadas. That’s when he thought to himself, “why don’t we have that in the States?” The more he thought about it, the more he became convinced that the empanada is a perfect food product for the US market, and also, for selling it via delivery, like pizza. The US Hispanic market alone (40 million people) is about as large as Argentina’s total population and most Hispanics are quite familiar with the empanada.

When he returned to his Rosslyn, VA residence, he immediately trademarked a name for his favorite empanada shop in Argentina. The problem was that at the time he was running my family-owned publishing company, TIYM Publishing, and also, taking MBA classes on weekends at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. He kept postponing the inevitable, but the idea never left him. Finally, one day, after moving to Miami to launch the Forida Hispanic yearbook (now in its 4th edition), he decided it was time to embark on this journey. Not only was he eager to put this idea to the test, he also wanted to secure a first mover advantage with this concept in the US market. It was an extremely difficult decision, but at the same time it was easy…both his heart and mind were telling him to go for it

And so, after months of research and planning, Half Moon Empanadas was born. This is great news for residents and visitors of Miami Beach, who will be able to get empanadas delivered to their doorstep or visit Half Moon’s store conveniently located on Washington Avenue (between 16th St. and Lincoln Rd). The goal of Half Moon Empanadas is to expand aggressively in South Florida and eventually throughout the US.

In order to offer customers the highest quality empanadas, Half Moon makes both baked and “soufflé” empanadas with a variety of fillings, as well as three types of sweet pastries called “pasteles.” Half Moon’s soufflé process produces an empanada that is tastier, lighter, and healthier than the fried alternative. Empanadas and pasteles will be hand made and contain homemade dough, by way of a production process resulting from more than 30 years of industry experience.

You can visit Halfmoon Empanadas at their website , or visit them at their store: