PEORIA MAGAZINE April 2022

D I S H A N D D R I N K

‘DROPPING MEXICO IN PEORIA HEIGHTS’ An immigrant entrepreneur’s tale of toil and triumph

(Left to Right) Co-owners of Palarte Yeni Rodriguez and Peoria attorney Chris McCall.

BY MIKE BAILEY PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIKE BAILEY

S ome people are entrepreneurial by nature. Some people are entrepreneurial by necessity. For some people, just getting to a place is an act of entrepreneurship, in and of itself. Meet Yeni Rodriguez, co-owner and operator of the ice creamparlor Palarte. With business partner and Peoria attorney Chris McCall, Rodriguez recently relocated her frozen treats shop to Peoria Heights. Hers is an inspiring tale of personal and professional risk-taking, from her immigration to Illinois from her native Mexico to her roll of the dice on her own business. Her story starts inMichoacán, a state onMexico’s west coast more than 1,900 miles and a 31-hour drive from Peoria. “I started my own business when I was six years old,” said Rodriguez, who

grew up in a family of 10 children in La Soledad, a village of fewer than 700 residents. She remembers the women of her community taking their corn to make masa tortillas and sell them, and she would set up shop close by to move her mother’s gelatin, of every imaginable flavor and color, which “sold out every single day.” Her days began early, at 6:30 a.m., work before school. She was smart but restless, and formal education ended for her at the age of 12. Rodriguez learned to sew and thought clothing designmight be her future. For a while she flirted with cosmetology, but found it “too girlie.” Culinary school beckoned for a time. Themilitary piqued her interest, but her father quashed that idea. At 15, she opened her own grocery store, which she operated in Mexico for five years. Along the way,

she was learning English by listening to American rap music. By then theworldwas turning a corner on a new century, and Rodriguez got the travel bug. Her father had started coming to central Illinois to work at the Nestle pumpkin plant in Morton. “I came here to visit and ended up staying with my sister,” said Rodriguez. From 2000 to 2005, she lived in Chicago, but Peoria pulled her back “for better job opportunities” and “the opportunity to buy my first house.” She worked at a food canning operation in Princeville, then went to Illinois Central College to learn how to drive a semi truck. Then came another career turn, as a personal assistant. A new decade was knocking and the door opened in 2019 to becoming a partner at an ice cream shop, Palarte – “pal,” the first three letters in the Spanish

18 APRIL 2022 PEORIA MAGAZINE