Husbands Osbaldo Hernández and Dennis Ramey dreamed of creating a space where queer, femme, and BIPOC folks could feel welcome to partake in the Pacific Northwest tradition of good food and good craft beer.
The owners of Frelard Tamales and El Sueñito Brewing have done exactly that.
The two started Frelard Tamales as a booth at the Fremont Sunday Market in Seattle in 2015. As their following grew, they started offering tamales by the dozen, notifying prospective customers of when the next batches of salsa verde chicken- and salsa rojo pork-filled tamales were available via Facebook, taking orders submitted via a Google Form, and delivering them in church parking lots around the Fremont and Ballard neighborhoods.
In 2018, they opened a take-out window just east of Green Lake on Latona Ave NE, moving on from but never forgetting their farmers market roots. Over the next six years, their popularity would continue to grow, and the demand would eventually outsize their workspace. So in August 2024, Frelard Tamales moved to its current flagship location on N 36th Street in Fremont where customers can now sit down with their tamales and stay a while.
“People got to know us just being a take-out place, and we wanted to honor that beginning, that history,” Hernández said, referring to the take-out window installed.
With plenty of help from friends, family, and various communities, they went from selling around 5,000 tamales in their first year to selling more than 300,000 tamales in 2024.
Hernández and his family moved from Mexico when he was 11 years old, joining his father, Javier, who was a migrant worker in the United States. Because they did not have documentation at the time, he helped his mother, Eva, support the family by making and selling tamales using the recipe passed down from his great-grandmother. Today, Eva serves as head chef and Javier as assistant chef and resident handyman in the restaurant.
“I think what’s most important is, what does the food incite in you when you eat it? Does it remind you of grandma? Does it remind you of that market that you went to in Mexico? Does it remind you of a street vendor in your city? That’s what we’re going for here,” Hernández said.
Frelard Tamales took on the COVID-19 pandemic from their Green Lake take-out window–an ideal set-up for open-air social distancing during a pandemic. Not wanting their employees to choose between a paycheck and getting sick, Hernández said they provided each employee an additional 40 hours of sick leave on top of the 40 hours mandated by the city.
Some of the roughly 30 employees working with Frelard Tamales have been on staff since 2015.
“So we’ve always been like, okay, let’s take care of our employees. Let’s take care of the community. Let’s look out for each other in the business community, especially when it comes to queer folks and BIPOC folks,” Hernández said.
Early on in the pandemic, they served free tamale plates – a warm corn husk pocket of masa and meat with a hefty helping of rice and refried beans on the side – to anyone who needed one. From 2020 to 2023, they went from serving 10 free tamale plates a week to over 500.
Shutting down the free meal program was “one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make,” Hernández said. “We were giving food to everyone, no questions asked. It became financially unsustainable for us.”
It was also during the pandemic that the little dream of El Sueñito started to come into view.
Born and raised in Ballard, co-owner Ramey grew up around Pacific Northwest craft brewery culture. In 2020, he left his research job, continued working in the first few years of owning Frelard Tamales, and obtained his master brewer certification from the University of California, Davis. He then apprenticed with Seattle-based Hellbent Brewing Company for two years.
In 2022, Ramey and Hernández opened El Sueñito brewery at 1926 Humboldt Street in Bellingham’s Sunnyland neighborhood. The following year, they opened their second Frelard Tamales location in the same building. In August 2024, after closing the Frelard Tamales in Green Lake, they opened their flagship location and taproom in Fremont, beginning El Sueñito’s expansion into Seattle.
Ramey works hard with the brewery team to launch new beers every month, and Hernández works with a graphic artist in Tacoma to craft names and visual stories for each label.
Hernández explained the stories behind some of the beer names.
“Alebrijes” is a lager named after a Mexican mystical art form, Hernádez said. “Marikita Red Ale” uses the term “marikita” meaning “little faggot,” which has is being reclaimed by Mexican queer folks, similar to “how gays and queers have reclaimed ‘faggot’ in the US,” said Hernández. “Mother of Exiles” is “a nod to the current political and immigration situation.”
Their commitment to culture and community goes beyond aesthetics.
“Being queer, brown, but also an immigrant – all those themes are very important to us,” Hernández said while recalling the ways that the tamalería and brewery have supported causes of immigrant justice, LGBTQ+ health, and environmental stewardship.
Earlier this year, El Sueñito collaborated with the National Day Laborer Organization Network and Voto Latino to donate some of its proceeds to support hardworking immigrant families impacted by the wildfires in southern California. Earlier this week, a portion of proceeds were donated to food banks in the Bellingham area while the status of SNAP benefits seemed uncertain.
[Photo of ofrenda]
“Tamales are filling and warm, like a hug,” laughed Olivia Newcomb, who was dressed as Raggedy Ann while enjoying dinner with a friend at the Frelard Tamales in Seattle for Halloween recently.
She had her college graduation party catered by Frelard Tamales earlier this year and hopes to attend one of the twice-monthly drag brunches hosted by El Sueñito sometime soon. A calendar of upcoming events happening at both El Sueñito locations can be found here.
“We have been lifted from day one by persons of all expressions of identity,” said Hernández. “And at the same time, we’ll continue to be excited to lift femmes, and queers, and BIPOC folks because that’s important to us.”
Noa Resnikoff is a fourth-year student pursuing a bachelor’s in Journalism & Public Interest Communications with a minor in Urban Design & Planning at the University of Washington. She is currently working part-time as a community engagement intern at Sound Transit. In the long term, she hopes to pursue a career in community and urban planning to help make the built environment safer, healthier, and more equitable.
