A new empanada shop in Sugar House is bringing together authentic recipes from Argentina and recipes inspired by the people who call Utah home.
Flor Farr, the owner of Empanada Co. at 2030 S. 900 East, was born in Buenos Aires and came to the United States when she was 20. She calls empanadas a “meal in a pocket,” and they’re made with a typically meaty filling in a half-moon-shaped crust that’s sealed around the edges.
When she immigrated to the United States, Farr said she missed having access to the traditional foods she grew up eating in Argentina, especially empanadas.
Every time she got a craving for an empanada, Farr would make them at home for herself, her husband and her husband’s family, she said. Farr envisioned opening her own empanada shop one day, she said, but wasn’t sure where to start. Her husband, Adam Farr, who’s from Utah and has experience with startups, helped her get her dream business off the ground.
“It took us this long, I feel, to actually put all our knowledge and all our passion and visions into a reality,” Flor Farr said.
They opened Empanada Co. in December, in the space previously occupied by the sandwich shop Even Stevens.
As the mother of three daughters, Farr said she wanted to have an option for dinner that was as speedy and easy as fast food, but made with healthy, quality ingredients. She kept coming back to empanadas, which is the Argentine version of fast food, she said.
“It is something that you can just feel good eating and not feel that you are putting lots of different things in your body that shouldn’t be there,” she said.
Collecting and inventing recipes
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Owner Flor Farr pokes three vent holes in ground beef empanada at her restaurant Empanada Co. in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025.
When Farr began testing empanada filling recipes for Empanada Co., she felt like her own recipe “wasn’t good enough,” she said, so she started trying others.
The recipe she found online “just didn’t feel right,” Farr said, and eventually she came back to her original, which she had gotten from her mom. When she asked her mom where she had gotten it, her mom said it had been given to her by Farr’s grandma. And her grandma probably got the recipe from her own mother, Farr said.
“That’s how it goes,” she said. “You just do it the way that you were taught to do it at home.”
Today, visitors to Empanada Co. can try that recipe when they order the ground beef empanada, which is probably the most Argentine empanada on the menu, one that you could find in just about any restaurant there. It’s made with ground beef, onions, red peppers, olive oil and oregano.
The recipe for the chicken empanada comes from Farr’s brother, she said, who works in the restaurant industry in Argentina. The chicken empanada is made with shredded chicken, onions, carrots, red peppers, eggs and sauce.
From there, Farr had an idea where the dough was going to be a vessel they could fill up using recipes that were “more symbolic of the population and where we live,” she said.
So, more off-the-wall, fusion-type empanada fillings came about, like the margherita (cheese, tomatoes and basil) representing Italian food culture, and the shredded steak empanada, which was inspired by Mexican birria tacos, she said. The pepperoni empanada and the Philly cheese empanada — made with ribeye, grilled onions, green bell peppers and provolone cheese — are influenced by American food.
Farr has even thought about doing an empanada that has spicy curry poured over the top as a Middle Eastern influence, and an empanada that incorporates German sausage, she said.
The Van’s mac & cheese empanada is named after a 10-year-old boy named Van, who suggested that Empanada Co. should have a mac & cheese empanada for kids who come into the shop, Farr said. So Farr made empanadas using three different kinds of mac & cheese and had Van pick his favorite, which is now on the menu.
“I think there’s nothing wrong with giving a spin, a twist to the traditional, keeping part of it, but also moving on with times, what people want to try and the demand that you have,” Farr said.
She said she plans on rotating the menu, based on what customers think of the different flavors. Farr makes all of her fillings in small batches every day, and the dough and creamy cheese (called “queso cremoso”) are imported from Argentina.
‘You just don’t eat it by yourself’
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Owner Flor Farr sits at a table in her new restaurant Empanada Co. in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025.
In the back of Empanada Co. is where Farr and her staff make all the empanadas for the shop. Most of the empanadas are sealed using a press, although the ham & cheese, the four cheese and the margherita are sealed by hand with the ends folded together so the plentiful cheese doesn’t cause the empanadas to explode.
After the empanadas are sealed, they’re marked with a wooden stamp and a food-safe ink identifying which filling is inside. The stamps are made of wood and food-safe rubber from Spain, another country where empanadas are popular, Farr said.
Farr said she remembers making empanadas with her mom, who would help her fill the pastry with delicious fillings. “It’s a thing that you do in the kitchen with your mom, and you just chat about things,” she said. “And it’s interesting how, now that I’m in the kitchen again, I end up chatting with the people I have in the kitchen as we go through it. It’s automatic.”
In Argentina, parents typically start out teaching their children to seal the empanada edges by pressing them with a fork, Farr said. Once they’re able to twist the edges of the dough together in the traditional way, it’s a “rite of passage,” she said. Farr remembers struggling to get the twist just right, until she finally succeeded.
Empanada Co. also operates as a cafe, offering classic coffee drinks and traditional Argentine pastries like medialunas and vigilantes. There is just enough seating — including a replica of the orange velvet couch from “Friends” — to enjoy an empanada and a cup of soup, or a pastry and a cup of coffee.
Before Farr and her husband opened Empanada Co., they were thinking of just doing delivery or a takeout operation, she said. They weren’t considering opening a sit-down empanada shop until they found their Sugar House location, when they decided they wanted to have a space where people could sit down and work, have coffee and talk, Farr said.
“It reminded me that whenever we have empanadas, you just don’t eat it by yourself,” she said. “In Argentina, you usually eat it with someone else or your family. So it’s normal to sit down and talk. And I also feel that in the American society that has been lost quite a bit.”
“... I feel like people actually enjoy [eating] as a social event, where you can talk and meet and you don’t focus so much on what you’re eating, or how you’re eating, but you’re just talking and interacting,” she continued.
Farr said she has seen that happening in her shop. One day, two men came into Empanada Co., and sat and talked for hours, she said.
“That’s exactly what I wanted,” she said. “I wanted them to just sit down there, forget about time, enjoy a good time talking with each other.”
