Chef Carmen Vasquez Traces Her 25-Year Journey with FS Food Group

At the Charlotte Business Journal’s 2025 Women in Business Awards ceremony in Uptown on March 20, each of the 26 honorees — recognized as outstanding women who are creating an impact in the Charlotte region — was asked to speak for 30 seconds about what advice they would give to their 18-year-old self.

While all the honorees in attendance provided valuable insight with their short speeches, for Carmen Vasquez, the question was a chance to reflect on a journey that had just begun when she turned 18 and has seen her defy the odds at every turn.

Vasquez marked her 18th birthday just a few months after arriving in the United States from her hometown in Guadalajara, Mexico. At that time, only her brother already lived in the US, so she had to leave the rest of her family behind and start from scratch.

She wasn’t sure what the future held for her, only that she had one objective somewhere down the road.

“My goal was to have a restaurant, but it was so far because, I mean, I’m Mexican, I’m new here in the country. I’m like, ‘Okay, let’s keep working,’” she said.

Vasquez shared her journey with us on a recent afternoon when she could take some time away from the catering orders that come into her office at Yafo Kitchen’s Dilworth location, where she’s the executive chef.

Marking 25 years with Frank Scibelli’s FS Food Group this year, Vasquez is also a partner at the restaurant group’s other Yafo locations along with Calle Sol Latin Café & Cevicheria, Little Mama’s, Paco’s Tacos & Tequila, and Mama Ricotta’s, the restaurant where she started as a prep cook at 21 years old.

CBJ’s recognition, and the question about advice to the 18-year-old who was newly arrived in the country and working in hotels, gave Vasquez some rare time to look back on all that she’s accomplished in Charlotte’s food scene.

“It felt like a dream,” Vasquez said of the ceremony at The Westin in Uptown. “I feel like a Cinderella because I’m coming here at the age of 17 and to get there, I mean, it sounds easy, but it’s been a lot of hard work.”

There was only so much time to reflect, however, before Vasquez was back at it, focusing her efforts on helping to open a new Paco’s Tacos & Tequilas in Rock Hill and continuing to craft the menu at Yafo Kitchen, with big changes in mind for the establishment this year.

Fusing flavors and ideas

Growing up in Guadalajara, Carmen Vasquez watched her grandmother bring a passion to her cooking that she then passed down to a young Carmen.

One of her favorite dishes was capirotada, a Mexican bread pudding that Vasquez still cooks for her four children, who range in age from 11-24, on Easter weekend.

Working over the last quarter-century with FS Food Group — which features a wide variety of food styles that cover Italian, Mediterranean, Latin and barbecue — has given her the chance to branch out and learn new things about how certain foods fuse together.

“As soon as you see something, it can bring you ideas and tastes,” Carmen Vasquez told Queen City Nerve. “It’s a combination of everything, and it’s how I’ve been creating. I really like the fusion of different cultures. I learned a lot of spices from the Middle East, like the sumac. I never heard of that before. Different things … we mix this with this. Everything is a fusion.”

Vasquez is currently working on a new menu that will center lentils, a favorite ingredient of both her and her grandmother growing up.

Her involvement with opening the new Paco’s location in Rock Hill has also allowed her to get back to her roots a bit.

“It is great because it’s my culture,” she said. “I have so many ideas that I cannot wait to open.”

She shared that, the night before we spoke, she was putting together a recipe for a new guava mole that she plans to introduce when Paco’s opens in the summer.

Her home base remains at Yafo, however, and it’s clear in talking to her how constantly she thinks about improving the experience for customers there. The menu item she’s most proud of introducing to the Yafo menu is the brisket taco for now, but she’s got a wider vision about potentially expanding to serve breakfast at Yafo and possibly adding healthy smoothies to the menu.

She’s also working on an as-yet-unnamed bakery project that will significantly expand Yafo’s options. Finding time to work between the 50 or so catering orders that come in every month, Vasquez is always working with other partners within the company to share menu ideas and solicit feedback.

“If I have an idea, I bring it to them, and everybody [discusses] a little bit, and that’s how we create so many dishes,” she described. “A little bit there, a little bit of knowledge from different chefs, and that’s how I grew up on this process because, so many chefs, they teach me so many things. I think it’s a combination of a little bit of everything, and that’s how we create.”

An eye on helping others

Carmen Vasquez credits the simple principle of hard work with her success at FS Food Group. When she arrived in the United States with no clear path before her, she clung to that simple principle.

“I do my best all the time,” she said. “I’m always working with that passion. I feel like everything comes … When you do your best, everything has to come at some point.”

She remains aware just how unlikely her journey has been, going from a prep cook who could barely speak the language in her new country to an executive chef and partner with one of the city’s most popular restaurant groups.

“Because I’m Latino, I’m a woman, it was a lot of things that put me down,” she recalled, “but I’m like, ‘No. I come for a reason.’ I have four kids. I have two daughters, and I’m going to show them the way. If I can, they can do it.”

It’s not just her kids who Vasquez is interested in helping. As a leader with FS Food Group, she remains interested in mentoring young people who are entering the industry and/or working under her.

“The restaurant industry is predominantly male, which means it is hard to see a woman in top positions,” wrote one of her team members, Sofia Munoz, in a college essay she shared with us. “She is one of the few who has reached that point, not just as a woman but as a Hispanic woman, which makes it even more difficult due to societal stereotypes.

“Carmen shows the world that a woman can lead, organize, have a vision, be strong, and be a successful mother and professional at the same time,” Munoz continued. “She encourages me to follow in her footsteps and help other women reach the top. If society believes we cannot do it, let’s change what society believes.”

Vasquez said she was incredibly honored when Munoz showed her the essay. Vasquez recognizes when certain employees have the same principles around hard work that she does, so she makes an extra effort to help lift those people up and put them on a path to success.

She made just such an effort with Alfredo Alvarez, who started working under Vasquez as a dishwasher at the East Boulevard location and is now the executive chef at the Central Avenue location.

“It was hard for me because I come from a place that … it was like no people to give you a hand,” she said. “I feel like it’s a compromise. When I see them, I see myself. I’m like, ‘I can share with them all my knowledge, everything that I learned from the journey, so why not?’”

Read more: Is Charlotte’s Uptown Food Scene on the Verge of a Resurgence?

And as for what she would say to her 18-year-old self — or any 18-year-old in the same position she once found herself in?

“Dream big. Work hard,” she said. “Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t because it’s not true. I mean, I’m a good example, and I tell this to all my young people that are working with me: If you are here, you can do it. So just keep dreaming and work for it.”