For Felipe Mayen and Gerhard Matamoros, Tela Latin Grill is more than a place to serve Honduran food — it’s a way to bring a piece of home to Gainesville.
Two years after opening their first location on University Avenue, the two Honduran immigrants are preparing to open a second, bringing their food and culture to a new part of the city.
Tela’s new location will neighbor Dave’s Hot Chicken in Butler Plaza. It will offer the same atmosphere and menu as its University Avenue location, according to the co-owners, but hopes to attract more Gainesville locals.
Mayen and Matamoros, both 26, founded Tela in 2024 to fill the void of Honduran food they’d found upon coming to the U.S. for college. After Matamoros graduated from Florida State University and Mayen graduated from Bentley University in Massachusetts, they decided to bring a taste of Honduras to the States.
Their second location is an attempt to broaden that taste, Matamoros said.
“The new location is a clean slate, so we're excited to introduce new ways of doing stuff that at least I haven't seen before,” he said.
While following the same recipes, their new location offers a much larger kitchen, Mayen said, allowing them to cook more food and attempt new dishes.
Within the two years they’ve been running Tela, they’ve perfected their recipes and learned what helps their business run best, Matamoros said, preparing them to take on the new project.
“Once we thought we had something good, then we had something even better,” Matamoros said.
Upon opening Tela, the two spent time with Mayen’s aunt, who owns a baleadas cart, serving the popular burrito-like Honduran dish. She taught the two how to prepare traditional Honduran meals, like their Tela sauce and recreation of a baleada.
Tela is named after a Honduran beach town that reminds the pair of their childhood, Mayen said. Growing up, Tela was a summer vacation hotspot for their families, and it’s where the two grew closer.
“I think of Tela, and I just think it was so fun,” Mayen said.
That nostalgia became the inspiration for how they want customers to experience their restaurant.
To meet that goal, they aimed to make it feel as “homey” as possible. That’s why the two took it upon themselves to hand-build and install everything in their University Avenue location, with grass-tiled walls and pastel-painted signs aimed to simulate the beach.
Their new location will share the same theme.
Julia Callos, Mayen’s wife and a 26-year-old management consultant at Accenture, helped the two open their first location and saw firsthand the work the two invested into creating their recipes.
“It was impressive to watch them put so much effort and determination into it,” Callos said.
Their new location, set to open in early December, will offer the same Honduran tastes and atmosphere but at a location they hope will be more accessible to both college students and Gainesville locals.
Mayen said that with their current location being located near the university, locals often find it difficult to find parking and may avoid the area overall due to traffic volume.
Living closer to Butler Plaza often makes it difficult to get Tela when she’s craving it, Callos said. With the new location, she’s excited to be able to enjoy it more frequently. She expects it to draw in a much larger crowd of locals eager to taste Honduran food, she said.
Callos said that with Tela’s new location, she thinks it’ll attract a new crowd, which is what the owners are hoping for. With their summer months being slow due to a smaller student body on campus, they’re hoping being at Butler Plaza can help keep business moving year-round.
Contact Katharine Litman at klitman@alligator.org. Follow her on X @katealligator.
