There was a time when the messages wouldn’t stop.
They came through Facebook, at first, then steadily. People asked about catering. They wondered when she’d reopen. Hoping for one more plate, one more taste of something they remembered.
For Lucia Sandoval, the voice behind Lucia’s Latin Kitchen, those messages meant everything. Because for a while, it felt like everything else was gone.
COVID-19 didn’t just slow her business. It ended it. The small, deeply personal restaurant she had built in Pittsfield — the place where she cooked every plate herself, where customers walked in and followed the smell — was forced to close. In the years that followed, Sandoval says she got sick repeatedly, battling COVID four separate times. The physical toll was real. So was the emotional one.
“You lose everything,” she says. And yet, the messages kept coming.
Lucia’s Latin Kitchen had never been about scale. It started with festivals, long lines and the unmistakable draw of her food. At events like Third Thursdays and Festival Latino in Lee, customers couldn’t wait for her shish kabobs, for the flavors rooted in her Ecuadorian upbringing and shaped by years in the kitchen beside her mother.
That connection didn’t disappear when the doors closed. If anything, it became clearer.
“It’s my passion,” Sandoval says. “I just want to bring flavors to the community.”
Now, she’s finding her way back. This time, on four wheels.
Lucia’s Latin Kitchen is returning as a food truck, a shift shaped as much by experience as necessity. Running a full restaurant came with pressure — staffing, overhead, the constant balancing act behind the scenes. After COVID, the margins felt even tighter.
A food truck offers something different. More control. A smaller footprint. The ability to focus on what she’s always done best: cooking.
Her strength, she says, has always been in catering. The new model leans into that. Private events, parties, local fairs.
Still, the heart of it hasn’t changed.
The menu will feel familiar to anyone who remembers her kitchen. Kebabs. Rice dishes. Cuban sandwiches. Fresh salads and fruit. Fried plantains — both sweet and savory — piled high or served simply. Natural juices made fresh. Food that’s meant to be enjoyed in the moment, or taken home and reheated the next day, just as satisfying.
Prices will stay accessible, ranging from about $7 to $25. That matters to her. Always has.
“I want everybody to be able to eat,” she says.
It’s a return shaped by community in more ways than one.
After losing her business, Sandoval says it was her family who helped her get back on her feet. It’s the community, too, that kept her going — the customers who never stopped reaching out, even when her social media went quiet.
“I’m very thankful,” she says. “These people let me stay here. All I can do is give back.”
Lucia’s Latin Kitchen Truck will open March 27–28 and operate regularly on Fridays and Saturdays from 4 to 9:30 p.m. in Pittsfield. You can find the truck on North Street in front of Steven Valenti’s. Starting in May, Lucia will also serve food on Saturdays at the Berkshire Mall farmers market in Lanesborough, featuring fresh local produce. For more details, visit facebook.com/LuciasLatinKitchen.
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