HAMISH JOHN APPLEBY
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EDITOR’S NOTE: On June 1, 2023, Berkeley, California’s popular Picante celebrated its 40th birthday — but not in the way anyone would have imagined. Instead of dining inside the Mexican restaurant that’s become a northern California must-visit for regional Mexican cuisine, customers dined under outdoor tents or picked up orders curbside as work on a newly imagined Picante that blurs the lines between indoors and out continued. As this issue went to press, owner Jim Maser was eagerly waiting to debut the new space on December 1 — the day Picante will become a special gathering place, inside and out, once again.
1 How have you managed to reach the big 4-0? And why did you decide to focus on Mexican food, which wasn’t well-known in the states then?
I bought Picante 30 years ago — it was 10 years old at the time, and it was two years before it turned a profit. It continued to be profitable and is now a Berkely institution. I didn’t know a whole lot — I’ve just kept at it!
When I was 19, I cooked for a band that I was in. When we were in Mexico, I had a plate of Enchiladas de Mole in Guadalajara while being blasted by mariachis. It was memorable experience, and the taste of the enchiladas stuck with me. I looked for them in the Bay Area, looked for those flavors and ingredients, and I couldn’t find them.
2 You say you didn’t know a whole lot about Mexican food or the restaurant business when you started out. How did you learn enough to build a Mexican restaurant that’s survived for four decades?
I was sparked by Diana Kennedy’s first book The Cuisines of Mexico. Diana taught a class in Napa that I attended, and that was the start of many first-hand experiences cooking with her.
Another very fortunate influence came from an ad I saw in the San Francisco Chronicle for a company called Culinary Adventures that offered culinary trips to Mexico. The owner, Marilyn Tausend, was my major influence. I took trips all over Mexico with her to learn from chefs in the seven regions of Mexico.
In 1984 I did my first restaurant with Alice Waters of Café Fanny in Berkeley. Alice knew that my heart was more in the south of Mexico than the south of France, and she let me turn breakfast and lunch there into Café Fanny del Noche. That was practice for what was to become Picante.
The restaurant I bought was called Picante Taqueria y Cantina — but it was neither a taqueria nor a cantina. It basically served burritos, tacos and one salad. When I took over, I brought in everything I’d been studying for so long.
3 You’re now doing curbside only as you complete a major renovation. Was Covid to blame – and to credit – for the new look?
When Covid hit and we closed on March 17, 2020, I decided to remodel the kitchen. By July 2020, with the new kitchen and crew of 50 down from 100, we masked up and pivoted to curbside delivery and dining set up in the parking lot. We’ve done that ever since.
After things settled down and we had a rhythm with employees and customers, I took advantage of the Covid situation and planned a total dining room remodel. Before then, we had only closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I realized things weren’t going to change very fast, so I embarked on the remodel.
I envisioned a dining room/bar room/ patio as one area — they had been three separate areas before. We removed 50 feet of the outside wall and put in floor-to-ceiling windows that slide open and look out onto the patio. That addresses operational issues that can be caused by a trifurcated space. The best restaurant space is one big room where you can see everything that’s going on, where managers can see guests.
The new look is contemporary with art that I collected in Mexico decorating the walls. It will be ready to open the first week of December — and I’m very excited!
4 Looking back, is there anything you would have changed about how you’ve grown Picante?
No! I planted the seed, my customers and Marilyn [Tausend] informed the growth, and the 200-seat restaurant grew from 16 to 100 employees.I had to throw caution to the wind because all of my eggs are in this one basket. I own the restaurant, I own the building, and I live here. Covid left me empty handed. Pivoting to curbside let me continue operating the business and let me create a really beautiful, fun restaurant that, after 40 years, really needed a face lift.
I’ve achieved my goal, which has always been to respect the history of Mexican cooking.
5 Do you have any advice for other restaurateurs trying to decide how to adapt to the constantly evolving foodservice landscape?
I would tell them to consider the way people use their restaurant — understand who they are, what they want. I don’t let my customers write the menu, but they do inform us by what they eat, when they eat, what they vent — and that input encourages me to improve every day.
I also would say exercise your passion! Then pay attention to who your guests are and take care of your staff — they are the people who allow us to realize our dream.
And always make time for life! Otherwise, other things will get in the way and throw you off track.
Kathleen Furore is the editor of el Restaurante.
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