Executive Q&A: Elizabeth Fauerso | CEO, Potluck Hospitality

Elizabeth Fauerso has a background in advertising and previously was Pearl’s chief marketing officer. A graduate of Trinity University, she travels frequently. As CEO of newly formed Potluck Hospitality, she takes her team on “culinary exploration” trips to experience regional cuisines and meet with other restaurant groups and chefs.

Q: Where might you consider developing concepts outside Pearl?

Fauerso: We have so much on our plate — hospitality pun, unavoidable — right now at Pearl. We have almost 200,000 square feet we’re developing here. At the end of 2024, all of those things should be open and stabilized.

Obviously, our first focus will be San Antonio. There’s a lot going on here. We’ll do what makes sense. We’ll see what kind of partners emerge.

Q: Tell me about how you developed Carriqui.

Fauerso:

When it was acquired, the building was about to fall down. It was really in a fragile condition, but it still had such beautiful bones. It took us time to think, “What could this be?”

Then the idea emerged: All of us that are from South Texas, we inherently experience our culture, our food ways. Thinking about one place that almost feels like you go to somebody’s house, where they could serve a meal that is comprised of the elements that make up our South Texas food.

Q: Where did the name come from?

Fauerso: It’s named after a green jay. The only place in the U.S. that this green jay is ever found basically starts at the Rio Grande Valley and stops at San Antonio. The idea is, as the carriqui flies, that’s our food. We’ll be serving barbacoa every day, brisket every day, roasted whole fish from the Gulf, grilled shrimp, roasted chicken. We’ll have nachos the correct South Texas way — not pile style. We’ve had long, very passionate conversations about nachos.

Q: Pile style?

Fauerso: Like a pile of chips with stuff on it, which to me, that’s not nachos. Each chip has to be treated with respect.

Q: Tell me about the Stable.

Fauerso: What emerged for us during COVID is that Pearl shows up as such a public gathering place. The fact that the Stable, which is such a special historic building on the property, was mostly closed to the public, because it was private events, started to feel like it wasn’t in sync with the neighborhood.

Thinking about the deep history of music in San Antonio — you know, this is the birthplace of brown-eyed soul — there’s a lot of music history here. Let’s bring that back. It’s not a huge space, but we see ourselves, admittedly ambitiously, trying to be in the company of the Ryman (Auditorium) in Nashville, or places like Pres(ervation) Hall in

New Orleans, which is even smaller than this, but it’s just a special place to play.

Q: What lessons have you learned with Silver Ventures?

Fauerso: The power of density. Density drives possibility. When you think about the challenges that we’ve had with our downtown, we still do not have enough residential density to support a true small business community.