Andres Carrillo, founder of the pop-up Cocina Pachuco, is using his cuisine to fundraise for immigrants in detention 

One night in late February, about 70 people crowded into Bellwood Coffee, a brightly lit cafe on Atlanta’s Riverside. They lined up at a buffet style table to pile their plates with fragrant Mexican American food—a chicken dish inspired by chile colorado, brisket that had taken 12 hours to prepare, enchiladas topped with oozing Muenster cheese. 

The meal came from the kitchen of chef Andres Carrillo, kitchen manager at the cafe and a relative newcomer to Atlanta—but who’s already making his mark in the metro’s immigrant communities. On that night, the richly spiced food Andres was serving was for a fundraiser for El Refugio, a volunteer-run “hospitality house” that supports families visiting loved ones in Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin.

By the time the dinner started, Andres had already raised $1,500 from ticket sales alone, with each attendee paying $25. By the end of the evening, diners pledged more than $7,000 either as one-time donations or in monthly sustaining installments. To Andres, though, the event wasn’t just a fundraiser for an organization he felt passionately about—it was also a way to strengthen his ties to a city where he’s still a relative newcomer, and to the immigrant communities he’s still getting to know.

Originally from El Paso, Texas, Andres moved to Atlanta in 2024 to be with his girlfriend, settling in Buckhead before moving permanently to College Park. “In El Paso, Mexican Americans are dominant, and Mexicans are culturally dominant, and there’s a shared multiculturalism that is not necessarily segregated the way it is here in the South,” he said. When I moved out here, it was very jarring,” he said, explaining that he was surrounded by mostly white residents in Buckhead, whereas other areas of the metro region, like Norcross or Buford Highway, are much more diverse. 

After years of cooking and working in the restaurant industry, he created his own catering startup, Cocina Pachuco, in February 2025 as a way to cook the Mexican food he grew up with. “Cocina Pachuco, and my cooking in general, is really inspired by my grandmother, whose name was Elva Melendez,” he explained.  Cooking is the way he stays close and connected with her. He also wanted to create a business that would support immigrants in Georgia by uplifting Mexican cuisine and directly feeding underserved communities. 

In summer 2025, Andres volunteered for a weekend at El Refugio, cooking meals for families who were visiting loved ones in detention. “That weekend was very eye-opening,” he said. “I haven’t seen many Latin Americans in Georgia at this point, and then I go to El Refugio. And everyone I’m seeing is Latin American, and everyone I’m seeing looks like my cousin and my sisters and my mom and my dad and they’re all either in cages, or they’re having the worst weekend of their life because their families are in cages.” 

After that visit, Andres decided he needed to do more to support immigrant communities in Georgia. He started collaborating regularly with El Refugio, cooking meals for the hospitality house every few weeks. He organized a few pop-ups throughout the week, including one in which he gave out boxes of food and hot meals to unhoused children in College Park, and one in December 2025, where he donated 15 percent of the sales to El Refugio. But his proceeds from that pop-up totaled just a few hundred bucks. “I really have been kicking myself like, what is the way that we can do more?” he said. 

So, with the help of about 14 volunteers—including coworkers, friends, and his girlfriend, Massie—he put together the February event. He kicked it off with a speech about growing up in heavily Mexican American El Paso, and the cultural shock he felt when he moved to Atlanta. Andres was joined by El Refugio executive director Amilcar Valencia; Mildred Pierre, wife of Rodney Taylor, a double amputee who is being held at Stewart Detention Center and has struggled to access adequate medical care; and Ruwa Romman, a member of the Georgia House who spoke about what can be done politically to support immigrants in the state. 

Andres hopes to make more events like this throughout the year, at different locations. He is already thinking about a new dinner close to Candler Park, and one solely in support of Rodney Taylor’s family. “We found that if we can sell 50 tickets in a couple of days, and we have people messaging us up until the event asking if there’s still room, that means there’s probably still demand,” he said. 

“I think this model works and I think there’s a model that can be easily replicated, and also maybe the best way for us to fundraise,” he said. Each $25 pays for a gas card for a family visiting El Refugio, so it materially helps people. But it’s still a low barrier of entry, he added. “And if you do that enough times, that’s significant.”