Food fight
Diners have a growing appetite for burritos, enchiladas and tacos
Frustration continues to grow on the Unifor Local 597 picket line in Gander, and there are rumours of a potential hunger strike by union members in order to force the hand of their employer, DJ Composites Inc.
The reality of Newfoundland life is that we’ve always been a little behind the times. Trends and tastes popular in mainland Canada tend to take a few years to find their way across the gulf and catch on with people here.
But once something new arrives on our shores, consumers are generally quick to embrace it.such is the case for Mexican and Tex-mex cuisine.
For most of the last 20 years, St. John’s has been home to just two establishments specializing in such fare, namely Quintana’s & Arribas in Churchill Square and Zapata’s Restaurant on Bates Hill.
While both continue to operate and offer customers a quality selection of tacos, enchiladas and chimichangas, the piñata has been cracked over the past two years, resulting in an explosion of food destinations catering to a growing appetite for what is essentially ethnic cuisine.
“We think it’s a good thing because it opens people’s mind and allows them to try new things,” says Robyn Ennis, who co-owns Quintana’s with her partner, Adam Carroll.
“They might go to a place that’s more fast food and then they’ll come here and try more of a sit-down meal and make a night out of it.”
Over the past two years, Burrito Jax has opened in Mount Pearl, Burritos moved into the former Subway on Topsail Road, Mucho Burrito is on its way to the Avalon Mall food court and Quesada debuted to great success on Kelsey Drive.
“We went from being what corporate thought would be a little store in St. John’s and turned into the No. 1 store in the entire franchise,” says Mark Norman, who co-owns the restaurant with his wife, Amy, and brother, Stephen.
“Highest volume, highest sales out of the 86 Quesadas currently operating in Canada right now.”
So great was their success that they were quick to open a second location on Hebron Way earlier this summer, and it wasn’t long before that location broke the sales record set by the first store.
And then there’s Soul Azteka on Freshwater Road, a true mom and pop restaurant owned and operated by Mike Wozney of St. John’s and his wife, Cinthia, a native of Mexico.
The pair met in Edmonton while Wozney was working with Cinthia’s mother, Martha. They decided to move to Newfoundland to be close to Wozney’s family and opened the fast-casual restaurant after the birth of their fourth child. “It’s basically a collaboration of recipes that have been passed through her family and my culinary background just tweaking them and putting a little special spin on it,” says Wozney, who says business is going very well.
“We don’t get compared to other local Mexican restaurants. Our comparison is straight to Mexico or the southern states where there’s huge Mexican populations.”
While all the restaurants offer many of the same menu items, each have their own recipes and unique way of doing things. As such, none of the owners feel the market is getting too crowded.
Like one’s belly on taco night, there’s plenty of room for all.
Norman believes the style of restaurants like his are what consumers want these days, as opposed to years past when higher-end dining was the desired taste.
“People just aren’t spending that kind of money in those areas anymore, but people want good eats, they want them at a value price point and they want it fast,” says Norman, who describes Quesada as a quickserve restaurant, but with a fast-casual dining aspect. “The way I look at that, the amount of exposure it brings to the cuisine is good,” says Wozney. “I’d rather let the consumer decide where they want to go. It’s all about preference.”
While all three places have similar menu items, it’s more than the recipes that make them stand out from one another.
Quesada has the benefit of being a chain restaurant, offering a slightly lower price point and the option of a frosty pint of beer at the new location.
“We’re in that market where people don’t want to commit for a 45-minute or an hour lunch, but they still want to eat something good,” says Norman.
Quintana’s, meanwhile, offers customers a different dining experience with table service and a full bar.
“People have travelled everywhere and come back and told us they can’t find margaritas like ours,” says Carroll.
Soul Azteka is the “hole-inthe-wall” shop with an insanely popular Toonie Taco Tuesday promotion that sees, on average, 550 tacos sold in a threehour span.
“I compare Taco Tuesday to Boxing Day sales,” says Wozney.
One common ground is the challenge in acquiring fresh, ready-to-use avocados, the main ingredient in guacamole.
At Quintana’s, kitchen manager Allen Price says they order up to six cases a week just to keep up with the demand for fresh guacamole, but even then it’s a struggle to have enough ripe avocados on hand.
“We’re going through so much that we’ve got to have two cases ripe, with two more that are a day behind each other,” Price says. “We could have two cases come in the same time from the same company and half of them could be ripe one day and the other half could be four days down the road.”
“Oftentimes throughout the week I’ll go to five or six different grocery stores and there won’t be avocados ready,” says Wozney, who makes trips to Mexico a couple times every year to source ingredients such as dried chili peppers.
While it sometimes means customers at all three places can’t always get guacamole, nobody is prepared to start using a pre-made product. “We’re never going to resort to processing the food or taking it out of a bag. The brand is very committed to fresh, healthy, non-processed food,” says Norman.