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A Longer Conversation with Jonathan Zaragoza of Birrieria Zaragoza

Better Neighbor

How did you decide that food was something you were ready to explore as a career?

Jonathan

Growing up as a Mexican-American kid, food always played a big role in our family. Every Sunday, my maternal grandmother would host all of her children for a meal. We have extended family in Guadalajara and Jalisco, but there are about thirty of us here in Chicago. Ever since I can remember, I saw what a great unifier those meals were for our family. We opened Birrieria Zaragoza in 2007. I think two years after opening I had my ‘A-ha’ moment

Better Neighbor

Did you start out working in any particular position at the restaurant?

Jonathan

Well, as with any small business, we all wore a lot of hats. For me, I was a cook, I ran the register, I ran food, and I washed dishes. But, I had been cooking birria since I was twelve. In that second year of Zaragoza, I realized I might be doing this type of work for the rest of my life. I decided to leave the restaurant and enter culinary school. But, after only three months, I dropped out

Better Neighbor

What was it about school that made you realize that it wasn’t right for you?

Jonathan

I felt like my classmates weren’t putting everything they could into the work. I don’t want to speak for all of the students, but the vast majority of them had the luxury of their parents paying for their schooling. It’s only human nature that if you don’t pay for something you care less about it. And, I was paying my own away.

So, I left to see if I wanted to follow a different path. My aunt worked on the twenty-first floor of the American Bar Association and got me in there making copies and coffee. I worked there for a summer and then decided I wanted to go back to culinary school, to Kendall College. But, same story. I lasted three months. It felt like the other students were treating it like summer camp.

For me, I like collaborating with people who have a similar ethos. I need to surround myself with winners, with people who want to pull together for a common goal. I like people that value other people’s time, and time in general.

So, I decided to just go into the workforce. I ended up walking into Trump Tower, of all towers. I kind of say it under my breath nowadays. But, I set up an appointment with Chef Frank Brunacci. They were about to win a Michelin Star at Sixteen, but I was just looking for a job so I could learn

Better Neighbor

What drew you to Trump Tower?

Jonathan

I had a buddy who was a sushi chef at their cocktail lounge, Rebar. I told him that I was looking to get into the workforce, but was obviously very green. I just needed a foot in. So, he talked with Chef Brunacci and got me the interview.

I think that is a common thread throughout my career: being at the right place at the right time. I have been very fortunate with people helping me along the way.

The position I landed was for ‘Overnight In-Room Dining’, which is a fancy way of saying ‘Room Service’. Back then, I would get business cards made, proudly saying I was an in-room dining service chef. That’s when I really fell in love with cooking. Little did I know that I had become this tumbleweed for the year I was there, acquiring different ideas of the type of boss I wanted and didn’t want to become

Better Neighbor

How do you personally know when it’s time to move on from a job?

Jonathan

I think it changes for every job, depending on where you are at in your life. There are a lot of factors that play into decisions like that, or there should be. But, as a nineteen-year-old cook, you don’t have the life experience or the wisdom to sit yourself down, do the self-inventory, and discover the ‘why’. At that age, you have an inkling of the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ becomes something you tell yourself you’ll figure out later.

Looking back, I probably could have stayed another year and become a dinner cook at Sixteen. But, you could play that game all day. I try to not look in the rearview mirror too much

Better Neighbor

At that time in your life, what was the relationship like with your Dad?

Jonathan

It’s tough. It’s a family business. As much as you try to separate church from state, as it were, you have a personal relationship and a business relationship. Over the years we’ve learned to navigate one another. My Dad understands that firstly, I’m always going to be his son, and secondly, I’m a person with goals and aspirations. I think for me, being raised Mexican-American, the culture is such that the family plays a big role in decision making.

I remember when I took the job at Masa Azul, I was twenty-two. My Dad sort of tongue-in-cheek said to the owner, Jason Lerner, ‘You’re taking my star player.’ I only heard of the exchange years later, but it still got to me. I thought ‘Oh man, that’s the way my Dad looks at me.’

Better Neighbor

How did you get from Trump Tower to Masa Azul?

Jonathan

I was at Trump Tower for a year and some change. Around that time my buddy Rob Levitt was the chef of Mado in Wicker Park. I went to eat there and was so moved by the meal. I was a young kid from the South Side with no dining-out experience. I went to the kitchen after the meal and left a business card.

I then reached out and asked Rob if I could stage. He was a busy chef and was opening Butcher and Larder at that point. But, he let me shadow him and taught me how to butcher a goat. I told Rob that I was looking for a different job and he got me in with Andrew Zimmerman at Sepia.

Andrew required a two-day stage. After the second day, I was gripped by the culture at Sepia. Andrew is the type of chef that you don’t want to let down, not because you might get yelled at, but because he is a good person. For me, that’s where I fell in love with kitchen culture. The camaraderie there was amazing.

So, I staged there for free for about a month. I remember around day twenty I asked the sous chef Charlie Welch, one of my best friends, ‘Hey, I really want a gig here. What’s going on?’ Charlie said, ‘If Chef tells you to take a day off, it means you should take a day off and you’ve probably got a job.’

When Chef returned from a trip to Italy, he had heard that I had been there for a month. He said to me, ‘Zaragoza, you’re still here? Take tomorrow off.’ I showed up the next day. I was hungry.

Chef saw me and said, ‘Didn’t I tell you to take the day off?’ I said, ‘Yes Chef. I’m just here to learn.’

And, that’s what it was. I think Andrew saw that I had the want and the need to be there. I understood what Sepia meant to Chicago dining. After my time there, I went to Masa Azul

Better Neighbor

What did Masa Azul offer that enticed you to move on from Sepia?

Jonathan

It was an opportunity to run my first restaurant as executive chef

Better Neighbor

What were you at Sepia?

Jonathan

I was the Garde Manger cook. I’ll be honest with you, I wasn’t ready to be a chef with the life experience of twenty-two years. Jason Lerner must have seen something that others didn’t at the time. I remember feeling so nervous and clammy during the tastings for my interview, just a fish out of water.

My Dad had always vocalized high expectations of his kids. I understand that now as an adult, hearing stories from my grandparents of what they had to sacrifice. So, that was a healthy fire under me

Better Neighbor

Why do you think you’re better able to understand your Dad’s expectations nowadays?

Jonathan

I think life has a way of humbling you. I’ve had conversations with my parents, the way they talk about their childhood, sharing a bed with six of their siblings… In Mexico, my grandfather on my Dad’s side was a professional boxer while having five kids and a wife at home. He realized that as talented as he was, he wasn’t making any progress in the sport. So, he bit the bullet and crossed the border ‘illegally’, whatever that means, lost his friend who crossed with him, and went to work the strawberry fields in California to send money back to Mexico.

Eventually, the whole family ended up in Chicago. As a six or seven year-old kid, my Dad found a tax prep book from the previous year and translated it into English for my grandfather. So, my grandfather taught himself how become an accountant and prepare income taxes for Mexican families

Better Neighbor

So, you are hearing these stories as a kid, but you were born and raised here in Chicago. You come into a totally different situation than your family before you. Did it take time for those stories to sink in? What started to build empathy and reverence for the journey that they took?

Jonathan

I think losing my grandfather and my grandmother on my Dad’s side. As an adult, you think about the effort it takes to work and pay your bills and then take into account external factors of racism and not being welcomed in a place where you’re just trying to make the best of a situation. I didn’t have that. You know, you hear some stuff nowadays online, but it’s not the same. Facing adversity head-on like my grandfather faced is night and day by comparison.

My upbringing was very blue-collared. My parents did a great job of giving us enough shelter from adversity as well as a healthy dose of it. They had jobs in Fortune 500 companies and worked a lot. I am the oldest of four and, at the age of eleven, they canceled the babysitter. So, for me, I had to grow up pretty quickly. But, I rose to the occasion and I loved it

Better Neighbor

Growing up both Mexican and American, did you identify with one identity more than the other at different points in your life?

Jonathan

As a kid, my mom would send us with lunch from the leftovers of the night before: chili con carne, or frijoles de la olla and tortillas. We would come to school and the other kids would be eating their baloney sandwich and chips. I wanted to trade my food, but nobody wanted the food I had.

I think as human beings we have a tendency to rebel at certain points of our life, as a coming of age thing. And, I did rebel against my Mexican roots a little bit. I felt embarrassed of speaking Spanish through my teens. A lot of it stemmed from good-natured as well as bad-natured ribbing from classmates. That stuff sticks with you.

Later on, when I burned out on cooking, I got kind of lost. I then realized that my route back to where I felt comfortable was to cook from a point of reference: my roots

Better Neighbor

Did you have an experience where you felt like you were really far away from your Mexican roots? Was there anything that was pushing you further away from your heritage, or was it just time spent away from Birrieria Zaragoza?

Jonathan

It was a little of both. I helped open up a fried chicken concept and I was promised partnership. I set up the infrastructure of the kitchen, created the recipe, costing everything out. I basically handed the concept over to the owner with the promise that I would receive a stake in the company. And, I got the carpet pulled out from under me.

I had a moment where I thought, ‘What am I doing?’ I was building something for someone else in order to learn how to open a restaurant and create infrastructure. And, I was learning. But, it cost me a little bit more than I wanted it to on multiple levels. That moment woke me up. So, I asked myself, ‘What are you doing and who are you doing it for?’

And that sparked me to call my Dad and explain everything that was going on. He was super cool and said, ‘Hey, this stuff happens. You always have a home here.’ So, I came back

Better Neighbor

When you called your Dad, what were you feeling in the moments leading up to it and while the phone was ringing?

Jonathan

I was feeling a lot of things. I felt bitter, I felt angry at the situation I was in. A little bit of embarrassment because I expected an ‘I told you so’. But, it wasn’t like that. My Dad came from a place of understanding. He couldn’t have been more welcoming

Better Neighbor

That’s really special. So, you come back to Birrieria Zaragoza. How did you approach getting back into the business?

Jonathan

What I brought back was the perspective of someone who had been working in the industry at large. It’s tough with a family business. You look at how Sepia presents its one Michelin starred food and the way we present our food and see that it’s inherently different. But, there are a bunch of principles that we adhere to at Birrieria Zaragoza that Andrew taught me, that Frank taught me.

Over the years while I was working elsewhere, I would receive texts from people that had visited my family’s restaurant saying the experience was just ‘alright’. I really didn’t like that. I understood that my parents were doing the best that they could, but I wanted to remove the possibility of someone not feeling fully satisfied.

So, I uniformed everything. Now, all the recipes are weighed out, measured in grams. I set up a POS system to help us keep track of our bottom line. We have been lucky over the years to have a lot of support from the community here in Archer Heights.

When we ask ourselves as a family if we would open a restaurant knowing what we know now, the answer is a resounding ‘no’. Ignorance can be big in helping you achieve your goals

Better Neighbor

What are some of the reasons why you wouldn’t open a restaurant today?

Jonathan

I think all of the sacrifices throughout all of the years. The fights. The down moments. Saying we wouldn’t open a restaurant is kind of tongue-in-cheek. We now see what Zaragoza means not just for the Chicago restaurant community, but for the Mexican people. Especially with the political climate, with the way the marginalized stay marginalized.

We are much more than a restaurant. We are a safe space for Mexicans throughout the city as well as for everybody else. Food is not only a great unifier, but also a great equalizer. We see people from all walks of life coming through our doors. For what? For something that’s from our roots. For something from my Dad’s childhood. What else could you want? Food is for everybody. What better way to show the world what true Mexican culture is about than by giving it to them everyday?

Better Neighbor

What decisions have you made or conversations have you had to ensure that, even as you gain popularity or notoriety, you still maintain the touchstone of cooking true Mexican food?

Jonathan

There are six of us in this family. My parents did a great job developing an ethos within us, a center. We try not to go too far left or too far right from that center. Open conversation between the six of us is paramount. We had the opportunity to speak our perspectives as kids and that reality has followed into adulthood. The whole family is involved in the business in some manner, which is a success in and of itself.

You need an understanding of what makes people tick and a knowledge of which hills to die and which hills not to die on. I look back on my cooking at Masa Azul. People liked it, but I didn’t understand what it meant to not do the extra step. It’s okay to dial things back

Better Neighbor

Why not do that extra step? What was it costing you?

Jonathan

I didn’t know who I was as a person. Obviously, if I don’t know my self, the cooking will be tied in with that. I remember watching a documentary on Coco Chanel and they asked her, ‘What’s your personal style?’ And she replied, ‘When I think I’m ready to go out, I take one thing off. And then I’m ready.’

At Masa Azul, I was doing too much and I was straying away from the heart of Mexican food. Do we need to make avocado into chicharron? No! Why not? Because avocado has a delicious texture by itself. Why destroy that? My ethos of food is learning to take ingredients, manipulate them just enough to where they taste great, and plate them honestly. The groundwork for me was already laid, but I had rebelled against it. It’s taken me thirty years and only now am I getting it

Better Neighbor

I am interested in how you feel Mexican food is represented here in Chicago. There are a few highly profiled examples and many more that are not. How do you feel about such a discrepancy of representation as well as how the food is depicted in the more highly profiled echelon?

Jonathan

My thought is that if someone is going to showcase my culture and they have invested the time to do the research, their own money to visit the country, then I have to tip my hat to them. It’s not easy learning food. It’s a never-ending journey to learn any type of cuisine. I’m a Mexican kid cooking Mexican food and I understand that I am just scratching the surface.

I take research trips to Mexico and if I wasn’t learning something every trip, then my eyes aren’t open and I’m not being receptive to anything I’m being shown.

In Chicago, we are lucky to have a diversity of dining experiences with Mexican food. We have a lot of different operators that are from all over the republic of Mexico: Jalisco, Michoacan, Colima, etc. When we first started our restaurant, we were the only niche Mexican restaurant in Archer Heights. Thirteen years later, there’s a guy selling machetes, which are like giant quesadillas from Mexico City or Oaxaca.

Chicago is a world class city. People like Rick Bayless are doing fine dining and fast casual. You see what he’s doing for his staff. One of those kids working for Rick is going to be like me and end up doing his or her own thing and change the food scene. I think there’s room for all

Better Neighbor

I find the conversation of ‘who gets to cook what food?’ to be a very interesting one. What are the things that need to be in place for you, as a chef, to feel comfortable eating someone else’s food?

Jonathan

I think Chicago still has a blue-collared identity. Of course, the culture in Chicago has changed over the years. There are neighborhoods that are safe spaces for concepts to exist and to thrive based on the type of people that that neighborhood attracts. You look at River North and the Gold Coast and you can see restaurants that are clearly speaking from their mouths and not their souls and yet still survive because of the demographics that live and visit there.

There are chefs in Chicago that are doing the whole song and dance looking to just make money. It’s a cash-grab. But, Chicagoans vote with their money. And, the big-money people have to sleep at night. If you’re making it in neighborhoods like ours, Archer Heights, or West Lawn, or Avondale, then that speaks to what Chicago truly is. If those restaurants believe they did everything within their power to honor their cuisine, then more power to them.

We are off the beaten path here at Zaragoza. We opened right as the recession of 2007 hit, but we’re still here. We’ve seen our neighborhood support and move us through hard times. I’ll say this, I don’t care what color your skin is. Invest your money, invest your time, research well, and approach any cuisine with reverence, love, and respect for the people that laid the groundwork for you to make your living. If you’ve done that, then get after it. That’s the American dream. That’s what we all want

Better Neighbor

You mentioned speaking from your mouth instead of your soul. To me, that speaks to the journey of maturity for everyone at some point in their life. We’re all pretending at some point…

Jonathan

…I was guilty of that…

Better Neighbor

…Yes, like you mentioned ‘taking away one thing in order to get back to your soul.’ I think realizing all people have to take that journey of finding themselves can help us build empathy instead of spinning in our anger

Jonathan

It’s like the saying ‘Live and Let Live’. Who am I to police people? We all have a right to voice our opinion. But, if you’re willing to say something, you need to be willing to sit there and hear the other side of the story.

A lot of that has to do with our approach. We’re humans and we have a tendency to exhibit fight or flight. It’s important that the ‘who-gets-to-cook-what’ conversation takes place. It’s equally as important how you approach it. We can be guilty of going for the throat right away. I have been guilty of that. You have to pose questions with the desire for a truthful response

Better Neighbor

You’ve been back at the family business for four years now. What are you excited about exploring next?

Jonathan

I had an idea a few years back for a Youtube series called ‘Cook like a Doña’. It focused on the heritage of matriarchal figures that have long been the stewards of tradition in Latino America. But, my friends who own Prensa Press in Mexico City convinced me to turn it into a book.

So, we just finished our first trip to Tijuana. What I love about this project is that even though Tijuana is known for seafood culture, we didn’t end up cooking any of that. We were following the stories of the Doñas, so we cooked what they cook at home, not what tourists would expect when they visit. I get to watch them cook food that was originally intended to nurture their families.

I was raised mostly by women. My grandmother on my Mom’s side would care for me growing up and all my cousins surrounding me were girls. It’s a big hiring practice for us to bring in Mexican women that have kids. These women have a monetary need to provide for their children, but in exchange, they provide us with a motherly figure cooking the food. And that’s what a lot of Mexican people in the States miss; they’ve come here and left their family behind.

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard someone tell us, ‘You’ve just saved me a bunch of money on a plane ticket because this tastes like home.’ What’s better than the OG’s telling you that you’re doing it the way it should be done?

For Mexicans living in Chicago and across the United States that come here, we’re basically telling them, ‘Welcome back.’ And for other people who have never had this food, we tell them. ‘Welcome to the party, man. This is the way we do it.’

For all of the accolades that we get, nothing beats being able to trigger all of their senses and emotionally send them back home

Seeing their response makes me want to go. I want to see it for myself. I want to find out what they are talking about. I’m inspired to ‘go back’

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