Venezuelan pop-up Carúpano Kitchen will open its first St. Pete restaurant this fall
/Carúpano Kitchen will debut its first brick and mortar location at 1040 4th Street North | Google Maps
A popular Venezuelan food concept known for its stuffed arepas and empanadas will soon open its first brick-and-mortar restaurant in St. Pete.
Carúpano Kitchen plans to open by mid-November at 1040 4th Street North, a 1,070-square-foot space previously occupied by a catering kitchen and Urban Canning Company before that.
Andrea Osorio debuted Carúpano Kitchen at Foodie Labs, a commercial kitchen incubator in the Warehouse Arts District, in 2025 with her mother, Diann Cedeño, and wife, Lauren Haley.
The menu centers on arepas, naturally gluten-free Venezuelan corn cakes that are grilled or fried, sliced open, and filled with meats, cheeses, seafood, and vegetables.
Osorio said the new restaurant will keep Carúpano Kitchen’s core recipes while adding new, healthy options for the lunch crowd.
“There’s a lot of changes coming, but overall it’s the same menu and recipes,” Osorio said in a conversation with St. Pete Rising. “It’ll just be an elevated version that caters to this new location.”
For someone trying an arepa for the first time, Osorio recommends La Pelúa, which is filled with slow-cooked shredded beef and gouda cheese.
An Arepa from Carúpano Kitchen stuffed with slow cooked shreded beef. Commonly known as 'ropa vieja', sweet plantains, and Venezuelan cheese | Carúpano Kitchen
Other offerings include La Reina Pepiada with avocado chicken salad; La Tropical with sweet plantains, avocado, and Venezuelan cheeses; and La de Chicharrón, a fried arepa made with pork belly in the dough and filled with queso de mano.
Osorio’s favorite is La Carupanera, which features Venezuelan chorizo and morcilla, or blood sausage, topped with tomatoes and garlic-cilantro sauce.
The restaurant also serves gluten-free empanadas filled with beef, chicken, cheese, seafood, or cazón, which is marinated shark meat.
The restaurant is named for Carúpano, a small fishing town on Venezuela’s coast where Osorio’s grandmother grew up and operated an arepa restaurant, with her mother and aunts helping in the kitchen as children.
The restaurant was ultimately short-lived, but cooking remained central to the family.
Osorio said preparing Venezuelan food gives her a way to share that history with customers.
“When I cook for people, I am bringing with me the ways that my mother, aunts, and grandmother cooked for me when I was a child,” Osorio said. “I can give a part of my entire world to somebody.”
Owners of Carúpano Kitchen Andrea Osorio and her mother Diann Cedeño | Carúpano Kitchen
Osorio was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, and moved to the United States alone at 17 through a student exchange program in Ohio.
She later built a nearly 12-year career in sales before becoming burned out and taking a break from corporate work in 2025.
During that time, she spent more intentional time with her mother, and their conversations often returned to a longtime idea: opening a restaurant together.
“I love cooking and I love hosting and I love feeding people,” Osorio said. “That’s one of my biggest passions, sharing a part of my culture through Venezuelan food.”
Osorio and her wife moved to St. Pete about five years ago after looking for a more LGBTQ-friendly place to live in Florida. The city has since become the place where they bought their first home, got married, and started their first business.
Foodie Labs provided a lower-risk place for the team to test the concept before committing to a traditional restaurant lease and buildout.
Carúpano Kitchen’s La de Brunch arepa, which contains Artisanal soft cheese 'guayanés', sweet plantains, avocado and a fried egg | Carúpano Kitchen
Early foot traffic was slow, but social-media videos and pop-ups at breweries and markets helped customers discover Carúpano Kitchen.
“When we started doing pop-ups, that’s when we really found ourselves as a business and our identity,” Osorio said. “We didn’t have to wait for people to come to us.”
As business picked up over the past few months, the team began considering a food trailer before the 4th Street North space became available.
The former canning and catering space already had a commercial hood, plumbing, and sinks, allowing Carúpano Kitchen to avoid some of the most expensive parts of a restaurant buildout.
Osorio said the business is intended to welcome diners with a broad range of tastes and dietary needs. In addition to meat and seafood dishes, the menu includes vegetarian and vegan options, and the arepas and empanadas are naturally gluten-free.
“I want to be a place where everybody eats,” Osorio said. “I want everybody to feel comfortable trying something new.”
Once Carúpano Kitchen’s new location opens in mid-November, the Foodie Labs location will close.
Be sure to follow Carúpano Kitchen on Facebook and Instagram to stay up to date on grand opening plans, new menu items, and more.
