LYNN — More than half a year after the Lazy Llama coffee shop on Central Avenue closed, a new coffee house, Las Paisitas, opened its doors last week.
While cafe owners, husband and wife Andres and Isabelle Gomez, of Saugus, stand behind the counter serving coffee, empanadas, and a variety of freshly-baked Colombian pastries, Isabelle’s father, Diego Villa spends his days baking.
Villa spent his life working as a baker in Colombia. Isabelle Gomez said that she was excited to work with her father, since he was the one who taught her how to bake when she was a little girl.
“My dad has always been a baker in Colombia and since we were little, he taught us how to do that, so it’s nice to see the tradition brought here,” Isabelle Gomez said.
The couple, who also own The Airport Diner in Revere, said that they decided to open up shop in Lynn partially so that Isabelle’s father could set up shop in a developing city.
“The idea came because my dad makes bread and I decided to open a bakery here because there’s a lot of people coming from Lynn and Lynn is growing,” she said.
Andres Gomez started cooking at the age of 19, and he has worked in kitchens since he came to the United States 25 years ago. He said that with the growing Colombian population in Lynn, he decided to set up shop downtown.
“A lot of Colombians live around here and I was thinking with my wife, ‘why don’t you set up a cafe in Lynn?’,” he said.
Isabelle said that, in their first week of business, the most popular products seem to be the empanadas, the pan de queso (Colombian cheese rolls), and the pan de bono (Colombian cheese bread). Andres Gomez said that he prefers his father-in-law’s layer cake.
The new business, Andres Gomez said, has already attracted two regular customers who live in the apartments above the 23 Central Ave. shop. Isabelle Gomez said that she wants her cafe to become a staple of the city.
“I want Las Paisitas to be recognized in all of Lynn,” she said.
Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at [email protected]
