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Hidden among the stacks and self-checkout machines at Thornton’s Anythink Wright Farms Library, something unexpected is heating up. No, it’s not a plot twist in a thriller, but pupusas in the oven.
LatinA Flavor Café, a food counter that opened inside the public library last September, is the kind of surprise that makes you do a double take. Yes, that smell of Salvadoran-style pupusas is real. Yes, you’re still in a library. And yes, you can absolutely grab a scratch-made tres leches cake with your next book hold pickup.
The cafe is a collaboration between three women who brought not only their recipes but their shared history to the project. Thornton residents Melba Velázquez of Tres Leches Treats and sisters Karen and Odila Colato of Sivar Cafe knew each other from their years working in the Adams County school system. When the library put out a call for a food vendor to rent space inside the building—a fresh idea aimed at making it even more of a community hub—they saw a chance to do something meaningful, and delicious, together.
“The response has been amazing,” Velázquez says. “We’ve had a lot of people come in and be thrilled—‘You’re serving pupusas here?’—and then other people, they don’t know what pupusas are, they want to know more. There’s been a lot of genuine curiosity, which has been wonderful to experience.”
LatinA Flavor Café’s offerings are small but mighty: aguas frescas in rotating flavors, creamy house-made tres leches cakes, and cookie-size, gluten-free pupusas that are made in advance and reheated to order. (Because of how the library cafe is set up with permitting, they can’t prepare food on-site.) The Colatos use their mother’s recipes for the pupusas and the fillings. At $2 to $3 apiece, you’ll want at least three per person.
“The star of the show is [the Colatos] pupusas,” Velázquez says. “It’s Mommy Gloria’s recipe. She grew up in El Salvador and has perfected her recipes.” The lightly crisped corn masa exteriors hold melted cheese, refried beans, a combo of both, or revueltas (a mixture of cheese, beans, and shredded pork or chicken).
Read More: Know Your Arepas, Pupusas, and Gorditas
Velázquez’s sweets are pretty special, too. After tasting one too many lackluster tres leches cakes in Colorado, she began refining her own treats until the flavors came together the way she remembered them from her childhood. “I wanted something that tasted like my grandma’s, like the stuff I used to find in the local bakeries back home in Puerto Rico,” she says. “So I started working on that in 2018…I formalized my business and that’s the only product I sold: tres leches cakes in different flavors.”
Unless they get snatched up early, you’ll always find traditional vanilla with cinnamon tres leches cakes (sold in round, single-serving disposable cups), but you can (and should) try her seasonal flavors, like piña colada in summer, Nutella in fall, and cranberry and orange in December.
As the cafe, located just past the main entrance, finds its footing, the women behind it say it’s about more than food—it’s about creating a space where culture, community, and pride are shared with every bite.
“We want to make sure people know it’s a 100-percent women- and Latina-owned business. We’re super proud of that,” Velázquez says. “We want to be sure we’re representing our communities and paving the way for people who don’t have the opportunity to do these things. That is very important to us.” 5877 E. 120th Ave., Thornton
