Stories

Marjorie Tenchavez

Across the Table
Interviews with Welcome Merchant food vendors at Powerhouse Lane. Words by Ann Ding and Shivika Gupta
Welcome Merchant vendors – Powerhouse Lane, Parramatta, 2024. Image: Ethan Smart

Powerhouse Lane was a celebration of the culinary and musical landscape of Western Sydney presented across four flavoursome nights on George Street at Parramatta Lanes in late October 2024.

As part of the festival, Powerhouse commissioned fbi.radio’s Snack Time team, led by presenters and food enthusiasts Ann Ding and Shivika Gupta, to conduct an interview series with Marjorie Tenchavez, founder of award-winning social enterprise Welcome Merchant, alongside four renowned local food vendors. Presented here is Across the Table: Majorie Tenchavez.

Powerhouse Lane is proudly funded by the NSW Government in association with City of Parramatta Council and Powerhouse.

‘From that little Instagram account, it grew into an online directory which is still running, and there’s been more than 150 merchants and artists featured since we started.’
Marjorie Tenchavez, Welcome Merchant, 2024
Two smiling young people share a dish at an outdoor market, pulling apart strands of food while seated at a table, with colourful streamer decorations overhead.
One hand holds up a cardboard box of golden round pieces of food; another lifts a white tray of assorted dishes, all set against a colourful mural backdrop.
Two adults wearing veils, and two children share a meal at a small black metal table in an outdoor market, with a colourful mural in the background.
A lively night scene at a busy food stall labelled ‘Taste of Sierra Leone’, with a vendor serving customers who queue along lines of temporary event fencing.

Welcome Merchant is a social enterprise which gives a platform to entrepreneurs and artists from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds. Together with Powerhouse, Welcome Merchant curated a dynamic line-up of food vendors for Powerhouse Lane, offering attendees delicious dishes from a range of cuisines.

Marjorie Tenchavez shared the story of how she came to found Welcome Merchant and the opportunities she’s helped to create there. At the core of the project is a nuanced understanding of the many barriers that people from refugee communities face when navigating the journey of setting up a business, and what is needed to help combat them.

Alongside the online directory, Welcome Merchant has facilitated and hosted numerous events in Sydney and Melbourne. These have included cooking demonstrations and pop-up restaurant events, as well as helping vendors connect and collaborate with some of Australia’s most exciting food producers.