Meet Paloma Hinahon, Denise Apigo, and Sarah Rañola | Co-Founders of Bahay

We had the good fortune of connecting with Denise, Sarah, Paloma Apigo, Ranola, Hinahon and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Denise, Sarah, Paloma, is there something that you feel is most responsible for your success?
Bahay was created with the intention of building up the communities around us. This includes the foodie community, small business community and most importantly the fil-am community here in Dallas. We want to create and hold space for people that look like us, eat like us, grew up like us but to also educate those around us that have different backgrounds than us. In Tagalog, “Bahay” means “house” and we want everyone to feel welcome at ours.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
All 3 of us come from rich, diverse hospitality backgrounds. Between us, we have over 33 years of service industry experience under our belts which has helped us define what we will and will not put up, what we want and do not want our business to look like. Each of us pulls from different strengths from Front of House service styles to Back of House operations, from creative cooking styles to classic techniques, from fine dining to fast casual. As a team we are able to support each other’s weakness and lift each other up instead of tearing each other down like the old guards of this industry tend to do. We are hungry for change and scrappy enough to build a business from the ground up in the middle of a pandemic. We are still navigating how to maneuver in this post pandemic industry and how to help pioneer the filipino food movement in DFW but we are willing to put up a fight.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
For coffee let’s head to Wild Detectives – it’s a cute little house that has coffee AND wine AND books AND records AND live performances. For live local music – Reveler’s Hall has bands from different genres of music playing 7 nights a week. If you wanna shake your booty, check out their house band every Sat/Sun from 2-5pm. For some nature – check out the Trinity Skyline Trail. You can walk, bike, run with an amazing view of the Dallas Skyline as your back drop. If you’re hungry but can’t decide what to eat – The Dallas Farmers Market has a melting pot of cuisines to try. Get a little bit of everything!

Website: www.bahaydallas.com

Instagram: @bahaydallas

Image Credits
20210714_Dallas_BahayPopUp_0008 , dallas_bahay_wb_2021-58, dallas_bahay_wb_2021-137, should be credited to StarChefs