Macho Posturing and the Expansion is Underway

In the mid-90's when Henderson was the "seedy" side of Knox-Henderson a few interesting places were scattered in among the taquerias, supermercados and store fronts to wire your dinero back to Mexico. The more memorable were Louie's, The Barley House and my favorite Yegua Creek brewpub. Fran and I lived a few blocks away on Miller and had been tinkering with various chili recipes of ever increasing Scoville units when we found out Yegua was going to host their first ever chili cook off. We decided to enter a particularly scorching batch - I don't really remember what the recipe was; it doesn't matter anyway because what stands out is what happened at the cook off itself.

We set up a table, lawn chairs, propane burner and pot of chili amongst the other contestants. Everyone was offering samples and I strolled around trying various recipes and noticing the different gimmicks each team used to attract attention to themselves. One in particular consisted of three guys talking about how incredibly spicy their chili was, and even had a glass jar displayed with fresh red peppers. As I strolled up they warned me about the heat level in their chili - saying the secret was the red peppers which one of them had homegrown.

"What kind of peppers are those?" I asked, even though I was pretty sure they were the relatively tame red fresno variety.

"We don't know!", one responded and added: "We put an ENTIRE PEPPER in this batch of chili."

I pulled one of the peppers from the jar and bit off more than half of it in one bite. I slowly chewed it, keeping eye contact with them the entire time. When I had finished the pepper I stood for a minute in their stunned silence. They couldn't believe I had just eaten one of their secret "killer" peppers. "You know who would like this?" I asked, "my WIFE! Hey Fran!" Fran walked over and I gave her one of the peppers which she ate, shrugged and said: "Yes I guess that's spicy." Those poor guys had gone from macho posturing to awestruck incredulity.

OK - enough strolling down memory lane. Fran and I visited the city planning office on Monday about our parking space dilemma and it didn't go so well. Basically they said we needed to have the required amount of parking spaces so as to not put "undue pressure" on the neighborhood. Fran pointed out that an abandoned laundromat with homeless people living in it also puts pressure on the neighborhood. I guess they didn't find that amusing and said we had to find parking space somehow. We decided to try a last ditch attempt and contact DISD about the old Davy Crockett school immediately south of us; when we opened it still had a few employees but is now used for storage. We learned that they will lease parking space; so we mailed off the application and hope to hear something in a few days but the outlook is very positive. Remodelling has begun on the space so maybe this expansion will finally happen.

Come try the latest batch of spicy chili. We lucked into some habaneros from Holland - very aromatic and Fran was quite heavy handed with them. Green chile stew is coming soon - I am working on getting a supply of green chile and I will be roasting them in the parking lot Saturday September 5th. Drop by for a fresh-roasted sample.

New Article and KNON Event

BlackWhiteRead has a very nice article about us; they reference the fact that authentic Texas chili is hard to find in Dallas. Hopefully we can continue to spread the word; it's easy to forget that we haven't even been open a full year with all the great support.

The KNON event looks like it will be a lot of fun. The venue is "Pearl at Commerce", a cool-looking space with a name which should appeal to the practical-minded as it is located on Commerce street & Pearl. Tickets are only $6.00 in advance and $10.00 at the door. We are selling advance tickets so drop by and pick some up.

On the expansion front, our landlord has pulled the permits and drawn up the plans for the building renovation. We have a slight problem in the number of parking spaces that will be required with our new space. The City of Dallas requires restaurants to supply one parking space per 100 square feet of restaurant area (not just dining area but kitchen and walk-in space as well). So even though we would still be a tiny restaurant we would need 11 parking spaces, which doesn't leave enough for the convenience store and whoever* else would want to lease the other two planned suites. Fran is going to head down to Oak Cliff Monday morning and plead our case so we can work something out. We've been told the city is very pro-development so maybe they will let us use some of the spaces in the all-but-abandoned administration building next door.

*Attention Mom - is it whomever or whoever here?

Markets & Technology

Last weekend Fran attended the local market held in the parking lot of the White Rock Greenspot. She sold take & bake six packs and 32 oz frozen chili; there was quite a crowd even though it was pretty sweltering by 10:00 am. The Greenspot is right down the street from the kitchen yet somehow I managed to be late and was scrambling around as our first, thankfully patient, customers arrived. Later that afternoon Fran packed up and headed over, I used some of the leftover dry ice to wow the kids and cool down a couple of Full Sail Session lagers.

This is just the beginning, next weekend she will be at Celebration Market on Lovers a few blocks west of Inwood. These little markets are great and foster a real sense of community; take that Austin! Coming August 30th we will provide food for a KNON 89.3 event - details coming soon.