Small Business
From Receptionist to Chef and Founder of a Pop-up Family Kitchen
A pandemic job loss spurred Becca Periera to start Spice Girl Eats, tapping into her lineage of Goan cooks.
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In June 2020, Becca Periera gave her Instagram followers a charitable challenge: The first 20 people who made a minimum donation of C$25 ($21.60) to a nonprofit helping Black Torontonians combat food insecurity would each receive a meal of butter chicken, cooked by Periera.
The “overwhelming” response gave Periera, a former model who’d recently lost her job as a receptionist, the confidence to start her own pop-up restaurant in Canada’s largest city. Four months later, she was serving paying customers authentic Goan food through her new venture, Spice Girl Eats.