Meet the Latina who went from learning how to make raspados and paletas at just eight years old to opening her own raspado and bolis (ice pop) business that has reached Hollywood’s movie sets, Dodger Stadium, and now even Super Bowl LVI at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium.
Lauda Flores, the founder of Sno Con Amor, was just six-years-old when her family moved from Mexico City to Los Angeles. At that time, her parents were the proud owners of Los Alpes Paletería in Huntington Park, an ice cream shop that at one point offered over 100 flavors of paletas, including a locally famous “frijol” flavored paleta. It eventually became one of Jonathan Gold’s favorite paleterías in L.A.
Like many other children of working-class families who owned food establishments in Los Angeles, Flores remembers the early 5 AM wake-up calls and sleepy rides on the back of her dad’s truck to Grand Central Market, where they would go to buy their produce for the day. She said that’s actually where her negotiating skills came from, seeing how everyone would try and outbid each other for boxes and crates filled with products. “They don’t do that anymore, but I remember I used just to take all that in. I loved it,” she said.
But even so, if you asked the little girl who used to sleep in the back of the paletería on piled-up sugar costales (sacks), if she ever saw herself continuing her family’s tradition of making icy sweets in the future, she would probably laugh and say no.
“Never in a million years, to be exact,” she said via a Zoom interview. “I loved the paletería because it taught me a lot, but as a kid, I hated it because I used to have to work there in the summer while other kids went on vacation. The amount of work was no joke.”