REV Birmingham announces winner of The Big Pitch grand prize
Tropicaleo, a fresh-casual Puerto Rican cuisine and dining experience, is the winner of the $15,000 grand prize in this year’s The Big Pitch – an annual “Shark Tank”-style competition for small businesses organized by the nonprofit REV Birmingham and sponsored by PNC bank.
The $5,000 second-place award went to Party Boutique Kids, a company led by Danielle Hines, and the $5,000 People's Choice Award went to Domestique Coffee, led by Michael and Nathan Pocus, according to a REV Birmingham news release.
The winners were chosen after nine Big Pitch finalists pitched their business plans to judges, potential investors and a live audience at the Thomas Jefferson Tower downtown on Saturday night.
The owners of Tropicaleo, Maria Isabel Marrero and her husband Gabriel Marrero, have done pop-up events and are in the process of opening a permanent restaurant in Avondale.
“When we moved here we saw the scene growing, and we thought it’s nice, but they don’t have what we can bring,” Gabriel Marrero told Iron City Ink earlier this year, referring to their Puerto Rican and Caribbean food.
The Big Pitch finalists announced in September included a wide variety of small and start-up businesses, including a pole fitness studio, an obstacle park and a maker of all-natural soap and skincare products. They were picked from 61 applications that REV Birmingham received.
In addition to prize money, Tropicaleo will receive free tax preparation services from Barfield Murphy Shank & Smith and one year of legal services from Gray Jenkins, according to the release. One of the other winning teams will receive a free website courtesy of Infomedia.
For more information about the grand prize winner, go to facebook.com/tropicaleobham.
For more about the Big Pitch or REV Birmingham, go to www.revbirmingham.org.