BKTX: How did you find Javier [the stuffed Javelina on the wall in the restaurant] and how did he get here?
MP: Poor Javier! I knew I wanted a mascot, especially since no one up here is going to know what a Javelina is. Even in Texas, there’s none in Dallas, but I spent a lot of time in the Hill Country growing up and they are very prevalent there. So, I thought we needed a mascot or people wouldn’t understand what a javelina is: there, that is a javelina. Usually they don’t wear sunglasses, but that’s a javelina. Like everything in the world these days, I met Javier over the internet. I looked on Ebay and Craigslist and all over the place. One of my cousins is a big hunter, but they didn’t have a full body one they just had the head. I wanted the full body experience. That sounds creepy. So I found this site — my interior designer helped me — and we had him shipped up and he got here and sadly one of his ears fell off during transit. We had to glue it back on but no one’s the wiser, but I guess the secret’s out now! He needed a name and we figured Javier was fairly appropriate. People love him!
BKTX: Do you consider yourself a homesick Texan?
MP: Yeah. Being a Texan is one of those things — you’re always a Texan. I still have a Texas driver’s license and I haven’t lived in Texas really since I left for college. Like I went back in summers and stuff and the holidays but I haven’t really lived in Texas in over 20 years! It’s something that I have very fond memories of, and I’m fortunate that I still have family and friends back there. I do have the ability to get back home pretty regularly. I think New York is such a great place for Texans. It’s not a surprise that Texans move up here. You have a group that’s very extroverted and loud and opinionated and brash, and so are New Yorkers, right? I think Texans, maybe more than people from other states, get up here and are like, “Yeah, these people aren’t so different from us after all.” They might talk different and not say y’all or yonder, or other things like that. I think New Yorkers get along with Texans too. They think, “Oh, they are fun people to be around.” You see Texans in every nook and cranny of any industry in New York in a very significant way, which I think is really cool too. I would feel more homesick if I wasn’t here, than I would if I was in Minnesota or something. I was in Chicago for a long time and there weren’t nearly as many Texans in Chicago. I feel like now I’m with Texans every day. Before, every time I would go out I would invariably always run into a Texan. Almost every night I went out. Even now, it’s just more and more Texans moving up here, and New Yorkers moving to Austin, coming back after a couple years. I feel as part of the community up here as ever.
BKTX: Is that one of the things that made you feel confident about opening a Tex-Mex restaurant here?
MP: Yeah. I had this idea in 2008 but got cold feet because of the economy. But every time I would go out and talk to a Texan, and invariably we would start talking about Mexican food. That’s just what you do, after you finish talking about the Cowboys or whatever! And they would all just shake their head and sigh and say the same thing: it’s terrible up here. I can’t believe you can’t find good Tex-Mex. So, I might be stupid but I’m not an idiot. After a hundred of those conversations I was like OK, hold on a second, there’s a big demand here for this type of cuisine. So as I thought about how to market the place, I thought if I can get word out to all the Texans, every Texan is going to come here once to try it. If they like it, they are going to tell all their friends and bring all their New York friends here. If they all hate it, then we’ll be closed in 3 months. So I had a pretty good feeling that there were enough Texans here — we did a lot of research on that — to at least have a group of not only regulars but also very vocal and supportive about the business here as well, and we’ve found that to be the case.
BKTX: Did you find any significant Texans-in-New York data?
MP: I used to use LinkedIn all the time for when I was doing recruiting, so I’m used to playing around with that. I did a few searches and my guesstimate is that — I think it’s a little bit low — probably about 30,000 Texans up here. It’s probably not too much lower than that, maybe between 30 and 40,000. The Texas Exes group for UT Alumni, they’ve got 11,000 on their ledgers across the tri-state area, and they have a very active group. Probably one of the biggest active alumni groups — I know it’s their biggest active alumni group outside of Texas. I think San Francisco and them are very close. But they are probably one of the biggest and most active alumni groups of any university in New York City full stop. So, A&M has a group up here, Baylor’s got a group up here, TCU, Tech. Some of them are bigger than others, but Texans like getting together and celebrating all things Texan! That’s how it is! Not to pick on Iowa, I have great friends from Iowa, but if you were to start an Iowan restaurant here, I wouldn’t know what to serve necessarily, BUT I don’t know if there’s such a huge state pride that comes with growing up in Iowa.
BKTX: Texans are extra proud.
MP: Annoyingly proud. I get into so many arguments with my New York friends about Texas, just the dumbest arguments. Of course you always end up, “Well if it’s so good, how come you live here?” and I’m like, “Listen, someone’s got to show you guys how to do stuff up here!” I think it’s just a very great — you couldn’t ask for a better community for opening up a restaurant. We feel very fortunate.
