Pedro Rodriguez Is on a Quest for Freshness

When Pedro Rodriguez is in his Kissimmee, Florida restaurant, Sajoma Latin Fusion, he makes sure to check in on the kitchen. And when he does, there’s a rule that all of his cooks must follow.

“I better not catch you with anything that’s artificial,” he says. Sajoma’s sancocho, for example, is made from scratch, not with bouillon, which many cooks use to build flavor quickly.

The approach has paid off. Sajoma has developed an avid following in Central Florida for its approach to Latin cuisine, rooted in good ingredients and creative cooking. Pedro, gregarious and perceptive with a quick smile and a salt and pepper beard, is proud of his brainchild. He’s a grocery supplier by trade; the restaurant business is relatively new for him.

Sajoma is Pedro’s most personal project yet, the capstone of a lifelong obsession with good food and good produce. And it all started on his family’s farm.

Feeding Off the Land

Until the age of 12, Pedro grew up in the town of San Jose de las Matas in the Dominican Republic. The municipality is known for its natural beauty and mineral water. “It’s almost like one of the greenest towns there,” he says. Sajoma, as the town is called for short, boasts dramatic hills, lush vegetation, and rolling rivers.

And even in a beautiful town, Pedro lived a particularly idyllic life. His family owned a 120-acre farm with animals like cows, chickens, and goats, and crops including rice, beans, coffee, and yams. “We pretty much used to feed off the land,” he says. Beef was one of the only basic foodstuffs that he recalls leaving their property to obtain.

The family home sat on the top of a hill. From there, Pedro could see a 360-degree view of mountains, greenery, and livestock grazing in the meadow. After school, he would hang around the house and play with the animals on their property.

The men who worked for his family would hunt for crabs in caves. Pedro would go with them on their hunts, but he would watch from the side, apprehensive, as they stuck their bare hands into the darkness for huge, snapping crabs. He enjoyed the result, though: a dish called locrio where stewed crab meat releases its flavors into brown rice.

Pedro grew up loving food, and it’s easy to see why. His mother was—and still is—a great cook who can turn any ingredient into a special meal. And she had the pick of ingredients in their family home. Milk from their own cows, yams dug up from their own soil. Pedro remembers his mother cooking cerdo guisado, or stewed pork, with onions and cubanelle peppers; and pasta with cooked green bananas.

“The food was, like, unexplainably good, because everything was natural,” Pedro says.

Twenty years ago in New York City, Pedro met his wife, Marisol, who was born in the U.S. to Dominican parents. When they were dating, she cooked him a meal that was, somehow, even better than his mother’s cooking. Pedro went home and told his mother; she was thrilled that her son had found a worthy match. And Marisol shares her in-laws’ dedication to natural cooking. “She does not use anything artificial,” Pedro says. “She’s very big on that.” That means no bouillon, and no pre-made seasonings, like the dried adobo mix that supermarkets sell.

With Sajoma, Pedro’s goal was to let good ingredients sing without any additives. Customers have taken notice. Pedro says that when he walks the floor of the restaurant, diners tell him, “I literally feel like I’m eating this at home.”

He believes this is testament to the power of simple cooking with no shortcuts. “Sometimes people think that you could force flavor. You don’t force flavor,” Pedro insists. With natural ingredients, “Flavor is very easy to accomplish.”

From the Dominican Republic to the World

If the Rodriguez family farm was Pedro’s first culinary education, the multicultural restaurants of New York were his second. When Pedro was 12, his parents moved to New York and sent Pedro, his brother, and his sister to the city of Santiago to live with his grandparents. When Pedro was 14, his parents brought their children to the Big Apple.

One might think moving from verdant island to concrete jungle would be difficult. For Pedro, it wasn’t.

He received a warm welcome from his extended family, most of whom had settled in New York by the time he and his siblings got there. His first summer in New York, relatives toured him and his siblings around to the city’s parks and botanic garden. He loved the communal culture of 1980s Brooklyn, where he would wile away the day outdoors, playing ball on the streets and hanging out with his cousins. When Pedro’s mother offered to send him back to the Dominican Republic the following winter, he declined.

Chief among these new experiences were the city’s food offerings. A family member blew Pedro’s mind when he took him for his first glazed donut. “I was like, ‘Holy shit!’” He remembers. “Where has this been all my life?”

Pedro had a similar reaction to his first Chinese meal. Before he learned to speak English, his cousin took him to a restaurant where the staff spoke fluent Spanish with customers before calling out orders to the kitchen in Chinese. Pedro and his cousin bought fried rice with a half chicken and tostones, or fried plantains, and ate it outside on one of their stoops. “I fell in love with that,” he says.

Starting Small and Expanding Slowly

The excited, food-loving child is very much alive in 53-year-old Pedro. He describes with equal relish his recent meal at a Peruvian restaurant as well as the locrio he ate on his family’s farm growing up. But food is also his business. In addition to Sajoma Latin Fusion in Kissimmee, Pedro owns four restaurants in New York and runs a fleet of trucks that he says supply most of New York City’s independent grocers. When asked about his secret to success in business, he uses a distinctly Dominican analogy: “I compare it to baseball players.”

Many baseball players grow up playing on poorly kept fields. A ball might hit a rock, and smack you in the face. “It’s harder when you’re in the minor leagues,” he says. But, “You got to make sure that you could do that. Because once you go to the majors, the field is perfect now.”

The message: “Start small,” he says, master your craft, and expand slowly.

For Pedro, starting small meant working at his uncle’s grocery stores in Far Rockaway, Queens during high school. On Saturdays, he traveled with him to produce markets to stock the store. When Pedro graduated high school, he decided that he would rather spend the next few years growing a business. “What do I know at the time and what do I like at the time? Produce,” he says.

So Pedro bought a van, and started delivering groceries to supermarkets, drawing on the connections he had built while working for his uncle. Soon, he bought a large truck, then two trucks. Today, he runs a fleet of 20 trucks.

The road has not been easy. His equivalent of errant baseballs that threaten to hit you in the face were snowstorms that he had to fight through to deliver groceries. For years, he worked 18-hour shifts, rain, shine or snow. “I’d come home and eat, sleep for three or four hours, and go right back out there,” he remembers. He has since stepped back from physically driving trucks and delivering produce, but still helms the business.

A Foothold in Florida

Over the years, many family members of Pedro’s have moved to Kissimmee. A friend told him about an open lot, wondering whether Pedro would be interested in opening a restaurant there. When Pedro saw the place, disparate threads of his life knit together: his childhood spent eating fresh produce on a Dominican farm; his exposure to cuisines from every corner of the world in New York; the New York hustle that had become his way of being.

“Oh my god, this is perfect,” he remembers thinking after laying eyes on the space. He wanted to build a restaurant that combined fresh ingredients, Latin American cuisine, international influences, and New York service. And he would name it “Sajoma,” after the town that started his journey.

After a period of renovation and menu-tweaking, Pedro opened Sajoma Latin Fusion in August of 2022. The restaurant’s interior is sleek and spacious, with an outdoor patio and plush couches. The team makes sure the produce is fresh, hand-picking it themselves from local independent supermarkets rather than large suppliers. Sajoma’s menu dances between Latin America—especially the Caribbean—and other parts of the world, like Europe, Asia, and North America. Their tuna tartare comes on a bed of guacamole and corn chips; their burger is topped with sweet plantains; and their sancocho is made from scratch with no additives.

A pair of elderly Puerto Rican ladies recently visited the restaurant and made a point of telling Pedro how much they appreciated the sancocho. “We’ve had something like this at a house,” they told him. But “we have never tried anything like this at a restaurant.” They would spread the word to their family, they said.

The word, it seems, has already gotten out. The restaurant has a loyal and growing following, and it becomes a party on weekends, when DJs and bands play salsa, bachata, merengue, and more.

Much of Pedro’s work has been helping the team emulate the type of prompt, attentive service that one finds at a restaurant in New York. Achieving that has taken a lot of repetition, but they’ve pulled it off. “I’m just so proud, you know?” he says.

Pedro says he approaches restaurant ownership as an eater, not a cook. He is actually not much of a chef, having been blessed with great cooking in his mother’s and wife’s kitchens, and in restaurants around the world.

He constantly tries new restaurants, and he acts as the president of a group of around 40 New York supermarket industry professionals that call themselves the “Friday club” because they meet up at restaurants for food and wine every Friday. It’s easy to see why he would be named president: He knows good food and has the gift of gab.

Pedro’s love of conversation and a good time is part of what draws him to the restaurant business, and when he is not checking on the kitchen at Sajoma, he is walking the floor, entertaining guests. He knows what it is to work hard all week and turn to a restaurant to provide delicious food and a space to connect with friends.

“I don’t have to know how to cook,” in order to run a good restaurant, he says. “I have to know how to eat.”

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Pedro Rodriguez Is on a Quest for Freshness

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After growing up on a Dominican farm, the owner of Sajoma Latin Fusion strives for good ingredients, innovative cooking, and warm service.

Experience Kissimmee

January 30, 2026

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In Partnership With Experience Kissimmee

When Pedro Rodriguez is in his Kissimmee, Florida restaurant, Sajoma Latin Fusion, he makes sure to check in on the kitchen. And when he does, there’s a rule that all of his cooks must follow.

“I better not catch you with anything that’s artificial,” he says. Sajoma’s sancocho, for example, is made from scratch, not with bouillon, which many cooks use to build flavor quickly.

The approach has paid off. Sajoma has developed an avid following in Central Florida for its approach to Latin cuisine, rooted in good ingredients and creative cooking. Pedro, gregarious and perceptive with a quick smile and a salt and pepper beard, is proud of his brainchild. He’s a grocery supplier by trade; the restaurant business is relatively new for him.

Sajoma is Pedro’s most personal project yet, the capstone of a lifelong obsession with good food and good produce. And it all started on his family’s farm.

[Pedro Rodriguez greeting guests at his restaurant, Sajoma Latin Fusion.]

Pedro Rodriguez greeting guests at his restaurant, Sajoma Latin Fusion. Courtesy of Sajoma Latin Fusion

Feeding Off the Land

Until the age of 12, Pedro grew up in the town of San Jose de las Matas in the Dominican Republic. The municipality is known for its natural beauty and mineral water. “It’s almost like one of the greenest towns there,” he says. Sajoma, as the town is called for short, boasts dramatic hills, lush vegetation, and rolling rivers.

And even in a beautiful town, Pedro lived a particularly idyllic life. His family owned a 120-acre farm with animals like cows, chickens, and goats, and crops including rice, beans, coffee, and yams. “We pretty much used to feed off the land,” he says. Beef was one of the only basic foodstuffs that he recalls leaving their property to obtain.

The family home sat on the top of a hill. From there, Pedro could see a 360-degree view of mountains, greenery, and livestock grazing in the meadow. After school, he would hang around the house and play with the animals on their property.

The men who worked for his family would hunt for crabs in caves. Pedro would go with them on their hunts, but he would watch from the side, apprehensive, as they stuck their bare hands into the darkness for huge, snapping crabs. He enjoyed the result, though: a dish called locrio where stewed crab meat releases its flavors into brown rice.

Pedro grew up loving food, and it’s easy to see why. His mother was—and still is—a great cook who can turn any ingredient into a special meal. And she had the pick of ingredients in their family home. Milk from their own cows, yams dug up from their own soil. Pedro remembers his mother cooking cerdo guisado, or stewed pork, with onions and cubanelle peppers; and pasta with cooked green bananas.

“The food was, like, unexplainably good, because everything was natural,” Pedro says.

[Sajoma’s interior is warm and welcoming.]

Sajoma’s interior is warm and welcoming. Corey Woosley / Atlas Obscura

Twenty years ago in New York City, Pedro met his wife, Marisol, who was born in the U.S. to Dominican parents. When they were dating, she cooked him a meal that was, somehow, even better than his mother’s cooking. Pedro went home and told his mother; she was thrilled that her son had found a worthy match. And Marisol shares her in-laws’ dedication to natural cooking. “She does not use anything artificial,” Pedro says. “She’s very big on that.” That means no bouillon, and no pre-made seasonings, like the dried adobo mix that supermarkets sell.

With Sajoma, Pedro’s goal was to let good ingredients sing without any additives. Customers have taken notice. Pedro says that when he walks the floor of the restaurant, diners tell him, “I literally feel like I’m eating this at home.”

He believes this is testament to the power of simple cooking with no shortcuts. “Sometimes people think that you could force flavor. You don’t force flavor,” Pedro insists. With natural ingredients, “Flavor is very easy to accomplish.”

From the Dominican Republic to the World

If the Rodriguez family farm was Pedro’s first culinary education, the multicultural restaurants of New York were his second. When Pedro was 12, his parents moved to New York and sent Pedro, his brother, and his sister to the city of Santiago to live with his grandparents. When Pedro was 14, his parents brought their children to the Big Apple.

One might think moving from verdant island to concrete jungle would be difficult. For Pedro, it wasn’t.

He received a warm welcome from his extended family, most of whom had settled in New York by the time he and his siblings got there. His first summer in New York, relatives toured him and his siblings around to the city’s parks and botanic garden. He loved the communal culture of 1980s Brooklyn, where he would wile away the day outdoors, playing ball on the streets and hanging out with his cousins. When Pedro’s mother offered to send him back to the Dominican Republic the following winter, he declined.

Chief among these new experiences were the city’s food offerings. A family member blew Pedro’s mind when he took him for his first glazed donut. “I was like, ‘Holy shit!’” He remembers. “Where has this been all my life?”

Pedro had a similar reaction to his first Chinese meal. Before he learned to speak English, his cousin took him to a restaurant where the staff spoke fluent Spanish with customers before calling out orders to the kitchen in Chinese. Pedro and his cousin bought fried rice with a half chicken and tostones, or fried plantains, and ate it outside on one of their stoops. “I fell in love with that,” he says.

[The secret to Sajoma’s success is fresh ingredients, and no shortcuts.]

The secret to Sajoma’s success is fresh ingredients, and no shortcuts. Corey Woosley / Atlas Obscura

Starting Small and Expanding Slowly

The excited, food-loving child is very much alive in 53-year-old Pedro. He describes with equal relish his recent meal at a Peruvian restaurant as well as the locrio he ate on his family’s farm growing up. But food is also his business. In addition to Sajoma Latin Fusion in Kissimmee, Pedro owns four restaurants in New York and runs a fleet of trucks that he says supply most of New York City’s independent grocers. When asked about his secret to success in business, he uses a distinctly Dominican analogy: “I compare it to baseball players.”

Many baseball players grow up playing on poorly kept fields. A ball might hit a rock, and smack you in the face. “It’s harder when you’re in the minor leagues,” he says. But, “You got to make sure that you could do that. Because once you go to the majors, the field is perfect now.”

The message: “Start small,” he says, master your craft, and expand slowly.

[...]

Original source