From suitcases to herbs: How one Lake Street business survived the pandemic by offering medicinal herbs

José Hernández, owner of La Petaca LLC, poses for a photo behind the counter at his shop where he sells medicinal herbs in Minneapolis, Minnesota on January 19, 2023. José Hernández shows off a bag of dried yellow elder flowers from behind the counter of his shop on Lake Street in Minneapolis. “This one is good for diabetes,” he says in Spanish. “Tronadora,” as it’s called in Spanish, is one of the most popular medicinal herbs that has helped rescue Hernández’s once-failing business. Earthy and floral scents permeate the small, packed space. The walls are lined with packages of dried herbs, vitamins, and over-the-counter medicines from different Latin American countries. High on the walls above the herbs sit a few suitcases, a reminder of how the business came to be. Hernández still remembers the panic he felt after starting his business, La Petaca LLC, in March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic took over the world. The store’s name means “the suitcase” in Spanish. As he leans on a glass showcase at the edge of his double stall at Plaza Mexico, 417 East Lake Street, the memories resurface fresh and vivid. “Everybody would tell me, ‘Don’t do it’,” Hernández says. […]

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