On a blustery, cold December Saturday, Bula Pies Fiji is filled with island warmth. Reggae plays softly from the outdoor speakers, and inside the small Vallejo cafe, a couple huddles over a pair of steaming hot hand pies while a family from Arizona waits for a large order of frozen pies. The family plans to take the pies back home with them, so co-owner Lysandra Oliver has left the tops of the boxes open and just enough space to put in some ice packs. 

“You need to open in Arizona!” one person says as they head out the door with their spoils. Bula Pies Fiji, which opened on Springs Road in the summer of 2024, certainly feels ripe for expansion. Already, service is fast, the food is hot and homey, and the enormous logo on the wall of a smiling Fijian man holding out a pie feels like a brand poised to go around the world.

Things weren’t always so busy at this mom-and-pop in east Vallejo, however. For the past year and a half, Lysandra and her husband and co-owner Celestino struggled to convey to customers what exactly Fiji pies are, let alone get customers in the front door.

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Celestino Oliver never set out to run a restaurant. An electrician by trade, he has no formal background in cooking or baking. Bula Pies Fiji started out as a simple way to eat lunch on the job site, mixing up leftovers and baking them into hand pies with the taste of his home country, Fiji.

Owner Celestino Oliver jokes around with customers ordering hand pies at Bula Pies Fiji in Vallejo, Calif., on Jan. 16, 2026.

Until one of his clients smelled the pies. 

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“We were having lunch, and he was like, ‘Oh my God, it smells so good in here,’” Celestino said. 

It was the moment that launched his restaurant career.

The client, Terrance Alan of San Francisco’s now-closed Cafe Flore and Flore Dispensary, immediately ordered 50 pies for Cafe Flore for that weekend. 

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“We delivered the 50 on Friday, and he called us on Monday — he wanted another 50,” Celestino said. “He called us the same week on Saturday, said he wanted 100. And then he just kept doubling every order.”

Pies on display for customers at Bula Pies Fiji in Vallejo, Calif., on Jan. 16, 2026.

Soon, Celestino and his uncles were churning out hundreds of pies a week from a small kitchen set up in his garage.

It was an explosive beginning, but it would be more than five years before Celestino could turn those pies into a brick-and-mortar restaurant. 

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After the success at Cafe Flore, Celestino and his uncles realized they might have a business on their hands. They began selling pies for delivery, posting to social media when they’d be traveling to places like LA and Seattle, and taking orders for pies via Facebook. 

That’s when Fiji found them. George Veikoso, the late musician better known simply as Fiji, was a Fijian singer known for promoting Polynesian culture around the world. He was living in........

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