Park Slope Restaurateur Shifts From Stoop To Brick And Mortar

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — Allison Arevalo will be among the first to acknowledge the stress level that comes with opening a restaurant. To do so in the midst of a global pandemic, she says, increases the tension ten-fold for a restaurateur whose passion for pasta is meant to bring comfort to those around her.

So when the pandemic brought Arevalo’s plans for opening Pasta Louise to a screeching halt in March, the Long Island native who moved to Park Slope from Oakland last summer, continued her own pasta-making operation. What started as a good-gestured nod to provide free homemade pasta to her neighbors quickly developed into a stoop-front business that had Arevalo and her children making 65 pounds of pasta twice a week – all of which would disappear in a matter of minutes thanks to a barrage of online orders.

Now, two nearly months after the restaurant she planned to open in April first welcomed neighborhood customers to Pasta Louise’s brick and mortar location at 803 8th Ave., Arevalo finds herself and her restaurant as popular as ever, all thanks to the good will that started back in the spring.

“That ended up being such a great thing for the restaurant because by the time I opened, everybody knew who I was because they were so used to buying pasta from me on my stoop,” Arevalo told Patch on Friday.

The four varieties of homemade pasta that Arevalo was selling for $6 a pound on her stoop for three months, now has a home in the 800-square foot space that Pasta Louise now calls home. In addition to pasta, the restaurant offers sauces, wine, pasta kits and novelties like macaroni masks, all of which has grown out of the imagination of a business owner who wanted to bring part of her childhood to a larger audience.

The recipes all come from Arevalo’s family and the restaurant is named for her grandmother, who was instrumental in introducing Arevalo to good food and cooking. Arevalo is still amazed how quickly word spread about her pasta, which includes traditional forms like spaghetti and fettuccine, but that also includes more unique shapes, like her popular bicycle pasta. While working from her stoop, Arevalo used colorful chalk art to direct customers to her stoop, where she and her kids would hand out orders for neighbors

Upon arrival, customers would tell Arevalo that the pasta pickup was the highlight of their week, even if it just involved a short walk. Not only were they securing an easy take-home meal, but just seeing other human beings brought happiness to Park Slope residents after being cooped up in their apartments for days and weeks on end.

“It really checked off a lot of boxes for people in a time when everyone was really scared and unsure of the future,” she said. “It was just a positive thing that people could look forward to.”

Arevalo, who operated a macaroni and cheese restaurant in Oakland, believes pasta brings familiarity to people. Whether it takes them back in time to their childhood or reminds them of nostalgic, longstanding family dinners, pasta provides a comfort level that is difficult to replicate. Now, after opening her restaurant on July 27, Arevalo and her staff are now cranking out 150 pounds of pasta per day at a new eatery that remains busy each of the six days it is open.

The restaurant also has a community aspect to it, including the Pasta Rose scholarship initiative, which will award a scholarship to a Brooklyn high school student who has lost a parent to cancer and that will assist with college costs. For Avevalo, the purpose hits home after she lost her sister to cancer two years ago. Helping look after her sister's two daughters is part of what brought Arevalo and her family back to New York, where she has now seen her business take shape in Park Slope in a location that suits her almost perfectly.

“While I feel like I got a little bit of it on the stoop, forming this community, getting to know the neighbors, now, it’s just on a larger scale,” said Arevalo, who has 22 full-time employees at Pasta Louise.

“It’s a little crazy because things change so fast … we’re really trying to adapt to what the community needs right now and it’s different than what it needed two years ago during normal times.”