New Haven, CT Barbara Pearce, chair and CEO of Pearce Real Estate, with the help of senior commercial broker, Carl Russell, and senior commercial associate, Chris Nolan, has potentially made the pizza capital also become the empanada capital of the nation.

Just three months after U.S. rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) declared New Haven the “Pizza Capital of the United States,” Russell and Nolan were involved in the leasing of a large light industrial building, which has become the newest home of an empanada business.

In the transaction last month Russell and Nolan represented New York-based 145 Hamilton, LLC., the landlord of 145 Hamilton St., also known as 150 Wallace St. The 20,280 s/f building was leased by Pikalo Foods, LLC of Yonkers, New York. The new Hamilton St. tenant was represented by Mark Glassman of Arnold Peck’s Commercial World in Milford. Pikalo Foods entered into a multi-year lease of the Hamilton St. property.

Pikalo Foods is a family-operated business founded in 2021. In only three years the company has gone from one restaurant with a tiny kitchen to an empanada empire, providing products to delis, markets, and restaurants in the northeast. The need for a new location in Connecticut was precipitated by the company’s expansion of its wholesale empanada business. “An immigrant dream that started with nothing and turned into something deliciously unforgettable,” according to its website. 

Russell is a member of the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors (SIOR) and he is a Certified Commercial Investment Member (CCIM). He is a nationally known instructor in the CCIM program. In addition, Russell served as an assistant adjunct professor of real estate at New York University, and he is a past president of the Greater New Haven Association of Realtors.