Chaiteria - Darren Jones Interviews Daniel

¡Hola! Good morning, I'm Garen Jones with the Tony Ray Baker Group, and today we are at Chaiteria, and I'm here with Daniel, who is the manager. Good morning.

Good morning.

Hey, why don't you tell everybody where you're located? Yeah, sure.

So we're at 1002 West Congress, right on the corner of Congress and Grande. Yeah.

Okay, and what is the specialty here? What is the store about?

Yeah, well, we do, uh, we do atypical traditional Mexican Mexican food. So we have a lot of, uh, South American and Indian fusions in our flavors, and, uh, we like to refer ourselves as, um, traditional Mexican as well as experimental Mexican. We specialize in unique plates and locally sourced ingredients, as well as a lot of vegan options with jackfruit carnitas that we became known for at our restaurant on 6th Street called Samara Co.

So that's awesome. I just started, uh, experimenting with jackfruit, and they, you know Hey, you've never had it? And they're like, oh yeah, you know, it tastes like beef. Okay, fruit, beef, whatever. Uh, but anyway, so now, uh, you serve food, you have takeout, and there's also a bit of grocery involved, and you have some specialty items.

Yeah, that's right. So, uh, we, we serve food, we do lots of unique drinks and lattes and smoothies. We have a lot of interesting, yeah, specialty items for sale that are both from here and imported from Mexico. And, uh, yeah, we have quite a selection here.

That's great. Now, what are your favorites?

Uh, my favorites are mostly the vegan things. Vegan or not, some of the vegan options that we have are just delicious. Uh, the ropa vieja with jackfruit is really good. It's a Cuban dish. Um, also the El Pastor tacos are made with jackfruit, quite good. And all our meat— all our meats, or most of our meats, are cooked slowly overnight. They're just very tender for the barbacoa and the chicken especially. Super good.

That's great.

Yeah.

And I noticed you're wearing your Tumerico shirt there in the morning. And so, uh, they are— they're married. Um, they are, uh, they say, you know, the owners at the same group. So anyone who's familiar with Tumerico, um, also make sure that you give a shout out to Chaiteria and check them out as well. They're just down past the Mercado headed west. So, um, now what are some of the popular items here? I know you have specialty coffees, you have— you're serving breakfast. You can hear it's very loud behind us because, uh, as soon as they open, it's like everybody just flooded in.

So yeah, um, so some of our specialties— a lot of people come in the morning for our breakfast items. We do chilaquiles, we do machaca con huevos, um, and we do huevos rancheros, uh, and those are pretty popular.

That is great. And like, you haven't been here that long, so what was, you know, how did this concept kind of develop? Because it's a great place to be in this neighborhood.

Yeah, definitely. So my, my boss wanted to open another restaurant and she wanted it to be different from Tumerica. And so we opened, uh, kind of rough timing, right before the pandemic started. Um, it didn't— it wasn't great timing, but it worked out, you know. We kind of toughed through it and we adjusted to all the changes that were happening. We focused on takeout and, you know, just kind of toughed it out. And it's gotten much better since. We were fortunate to, you know, have some publicity from local people like yourselves, and we've been really appreciative of that. And, you know, just word of mouth, you know, when the food is really good and the service is really good and people are friendly and, you know, they have a good experience, then, you know, you're going to tell people about it. And I think that's been really big for us. We just, we just do the best job that we can, and people, you know, acknowledge that and they come. And we've been really fortunate to have the best customers in Tucson, the best.

That's awesome. And, um, you know, the shop is very, very colorful. I want to touch on this, this great mural behind us is just fantastic.

Yeah.

So what can you tell me about that?

Yeah, the murals mostly were painted by Alejandra Trujillo. And she is a local artist who does fantastic work. She painted the two murals on this, on the side of the wall there, and then the large mural facing east on the east wall there on the outside. There's also a couple murals in the back, and she, uh, she's just really, really talented.

It's obviously— yeah, so, you know, if you weren't going to come for the food, if you like murals, another reason to visit. I tell you.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

That's awesome. So is there anything else that you'd like to share for us today and that we haven't covered so far?

I just, we just, we really appreciate all everybody's business and we are really grateful to be in this neighborhood and providing good food. And yeah, just come check us out, bring your friends and family. There's something for everybody here. And yeah, we're really grateful to be here.

So that's great. Thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you.

And again, we're in the Menlo Park neighborhood and come on down and see Chaiteria and visit Tamarico. It's something interesting to see. Of the Menlo Park jewels. I'm Darren Jones signing off.