The Pittsburgh Dish
Do you really know the food scene of Pittsburgh?! The Pittsburgh Dish introduces you to the people, places, and recipes that make our regional cuisine so special. By sharing personal stories, weekly recommendations, and community recipes, we aim to inspire you to connect with local taste makers and experience the unique flavors that shape our city.
The Pittsburgh Dish
025 Andrew Heffner Unveils Bar Marco's Magic
(00:35) Ever wondered how a beloved Pittsburgh restaurant turned an old firehouse into a culinary gem? Join us as we sit down with Andrew Heffner, the general manager of Bar Marco, to uncover the inspiring journey. Andrew shares the secrets behind their unique dining experience and the importance of staff longevity, creating a sense of community that keeps patrons coming back.
(07:28) Get ready to immerse yourself in the flavors of Italy's Piedmont region, right in Pittsburgh's Strip District. A commitment to local sourcing and seasonality shapes Bar Marco's evolving menu, while thoughtfully crafted cocktails and natural wines round out the experience. Plus, hear about their innovative decision to eliminate tipping, ensuring a sustainable and supportive environment for their dedicated staff.
(50:52) As a bonus, fellow Great American Recipe contestant John Hinojosa joins us to share his San Antonio-style Tlacoyos recipe. This episode is packed with rich culinary insights, making it an unmissable treat for any food enthusiast.
Welcome to The Pittsburgh Dish. I'm your host, Doug Heilman. Has this local restaurant composed the perfect recipe for long-term success? We'll learn all about the well-intentioned magic behind Bar Marco. And looking to add another stuffed food item to your home cooking repertoire, our friend John Hinojosa shares a stuffed tortilla recipe called tlacoyos. All that ahead, stay tuned. Thank you so much for coming over and being on the show. Yeah, thanks for having me. Would you introduce yourself and what you have going on right now in the world of food?
Andrew:Of course, yeah. So I'm Andrew Heffner. I'm the general manager at Bar Marco restaurant down in the St of food. Of course, yeah. So I'm Andrew Heffner. I'm the general manager at Bar Marco restaurant down in the strip district and I have been there for 12 and a half years and we are just a small neighborhood restaurant with, at this point, a long tenure but I've been.
Andrew:I've been running the front of house for many years and before that was running the events program and doing some service in the front of house. Way back I was like helping bar back or dishwash or anything kind of to learn the nature of the thing as we were growing it. But for a long time I've been in management and kind of running the day to day of the restaurant.
Doug:And Andrew, I just want to take a step back. You just said how long has the restaurant been open and how long have you been there.
Andrew:Yeah, the restaurant's been open about 12 and a half years, and I've been there since day one. I've been there the whole time. This is your thing, right? It really is.
Doug:Yeah, there's a lot of folks on the staff that have been there, it's true, quite a long time.
Andrew:Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have a bar manager, jason, who's been there probably eight years or more. Kitchen manager Maddie, been there seven years. Our event manager, shelby, has been there about seven years as well. A lot of the staff I think hopefully is part of our whole ethos is to have folks find their home and kind of put their stamp on it, and then it grows around them, and a lot of what we do is shaped by the folks that find that right, fit and stay for a long time, of which I am one. I'm not the only one.
Doug:Oh, perfect, I love it. I just want to ask one more the chef, who's the current sort?
Jon:of head chef.
Doug:I don't know how you're organized, so maybe I'm not saying that right.
Andrew:Yeah, we have some, but not a ton of hierarchy in the kitchen. The head chef is Justin Steele and he's also the owner. He was one of the. There were four owners originally. They're all like friends from high school that decided to quit their jobs after probably only a few years out of college and come and do restaurants. And they uh yeah, and I had met them before everything opened and then kind of came as a favor, I thought for the weekend.
Doug:What a life change.
Andrew:Yeah, yeah, but Justin has has been there, of course, the whole time, largely in the kitchen but with a good amount of awareness of the other parts, but a lot of the first years of the restaurant.
Andrew:We were so new to everything learning a lot of stuff and he himself was like limited in experiences in a professional kitchen and we started hiring people who were excellent and that's, of course, always the lifeblood of any restaurant is really talented people with a lot of passion coming in, and I think a lot of what he's sort of learned as we've gone which all of us have been there have but he's become a wonderful chef in his own right, of course, but partly through getting to work with other really great people spending a lot of time reading cookbooks and traveling a decent amount, I think has always been something that informs all of us.
Doug:Yeah, you guys have done some trips, it's true. Yeah, we'll talk about that in a little bit. Yeah, yeah, I think maybe I want to also just define for some listeners out there that maybe haven't visited your restaurant in the 12 years it's been open. You did mention it's in the Strip District. It's on Penn Avenue. It's in a beautiful building that was probably an old. It was a firehouse.
Andrew:That's right, yeah, but like 1890s at least. So before cars Beautiful, very old, it's not super big firehouse.
Doug:I mean it's a double, two floors, a really fun, intimate space. You guys kept some of the tile on the wall right, didn't you say you found it?
Andrew:when you were renovating. Yeah, so it's. It has a lot of history. It's really wonderful, and part of that, yeah, we discovered we wanted to. You know, we're taking out drywall, removing drop ceilings, the usual stuff, thank goodness, thank you, bless you. Yeah, it's crazy how much of a trend that was. Oh my. But yeah, underneath these things, we found amazing original subway tile and tin ceilings that were all intact and so, as we had to, you know, modernize electricity or change lighting and build tables there's all these other details that were there that we could keep, and it's been a huge part of the restaurant experience is the design of it and the feel of it and partly being very old but also having a lot of little modern touches.
Andrew:Yes, Spend a lot of intentional time putting thought behind what art is on the walls, or the music and the volume of the music which is high a lot of the time, and the dining room itself is small it only seats 30 people.
Doug:That's what I love about it, I think, the character of it being in the strip district. It feels like it's been there forever, even as a restaurant. But I mean, and 12 years is a good run, but it even feels longer, like it just has that sense of place. Yeah, and so well thought out.
Andrew:Yeah, yeah, thank you.
Andrew:We're very fortunate to you know you put a lot of thought and passion into things, but also things have to grow around you in ways you couldn't predict, and design is one of those where it's like the neighborhood was one thing when we opened and has become something very different in the 12 years that's right but partly we just have a lot more neighbors and people who live near us that we didn't before, and it's become not easier but different to have a lot more folks that just walk over, yeah, or that are like yeah, yeah, our regulars can see the door sometimes from their like porches and that's, they didn't have those porches until a few years ago.
Doug:In a lot of cases, but, we have more folks nearby in the strip, living in the strip yeah, a lot more living down in that area than there was a decade ago. I do just want to say for folks that decade ago. I do just want to say for folks that need to do that visit or haven't.
Andrew:Number one what are the current hours of service, what days are you open and the hours Right. So we're open just for dinner. We do dinner Tuesday through Saturday and we're open from five to about 10. We take reservations and a lot of the time that's recommended because it's a tiny room, but it's really anytime from 5 to 9. But then of course, if we're pretty full at 9, we'll be there till 11 or so.
Andrew:And every night is a little different in how busy it is. But, especially since COVID, we've done a different, kind of a little bit more elevated dining experience, in that it's a two-course menu, yes, and you're staying. We kind of plan on you getting the whole experience that you're going to be there for a good. It's going to be an hour and a half, two hour, three hour dinner, depending on what you're doing and who you're with, and that, for us, allows us to really highlight a lot of different kinds of food that we're making and everyone's trying different things. But also the time. The pace is slower and intentional. The service is very, hopefully very, personal, but also but slow and not a rush.
Doug:I think it's what so many people are craving nowadays when they go out, and they want to have not just a meal but an experience. Yeah, so you started leading me into the next question, which is a little bit more about the food. Italian influenced heavily. Right, how would you describe? Because I know the menu changes. But what would be some specialties or dishes that people might enjoy, even on the current menu.
Andrew:Yeah, yeah, yeah, parts of it change a lot, um, but some of it is is standby and and it's all very italian, but italian in in so far as it's also informed by all the ingredients and produce of western pa right so we're. We're making things that are common mostly to northern italy and specifically piedmont. The region is probably the most direct influence on a lot of the food, but that also means different things if you're not in Piedmont.
Andrew:The tomatoes that we grow here might be slightly different, or the nature of the meat, so our menu will have a lot of it. Could be familiar if you came from Italy, but it's very hopefully familiar to Pittsburgh and to this area. So there's items like something called vitello tonnato. We've had this on the menu for many years. It never comes off. It's like a bar snack if you're in piedmont, but it takes some description whenever people order it. If they've never been, we're like, so it has all these things.
Andrew:It's like thin sliced veal, that's like cooked beforehand but then served room temperature. With this special, like tuna sauce.
Andrew:Tonato itself means tuna basically in Italian and it's kind of like a mayo with these breadsticks that we make. You kind of make little sandwiches with it and it's like a bar snack. Yeah, our version is a little fancier than it might be if you're in Piedmont, where it's just like a all day happy hour kind of a thing that people eat, right, but it looks and tastes wonderful and different from most things that are on menus here. But we also do a lot of pasta and quite a bit of it, familiar things we have right now. Uh, you know, vodka sauce and that's honestly that. Its origins aren't even italian, it's right, it's new york right, it's more americanized.
Andrew:Yes, yeah, and we love that and we it's fun to cook that way too, and and have dishes that are again informed not only by Italy, but by where we actually are.
Doug:Yeah, for the pastas. Are you making pastas? We do From scratch, we make them all from scratch, you make them all from scratch.
Andrew:Yeah, usually five, sometimes six per week. Oh my goodness.
Doug:It's quite a project.
Andrew:Yeah, oh my goodness, it's quite a project. Yeah, some of that early, early on we started we'd make like one or two.
Doug:Okay.
Andrew:And it's labor intensive.
Andrew:Sure One person was probably just doing all of it and, especially as Justin, I think, kind of grew into himself and his interest and confidence in this stuff, he was like let's really go, let's do it, let's do pasta, and some of that means let's get more machinery. That's necessary. We have a dear to everyone is the pasta machine that's an extruder. Yeah, stella, she, she is a part of the team and and there's a, you know, a whole rotation early in the week where a bunch of the shapes that are extruded are all being. It's basically someone is over there like tending to her the whole time, setting up all the trays, and then they go to be dried in the walk-in, usually for another two days before they're ready to be served. There's a couple different fresh pastas made each week too, and a lot of that is. Is this like slow time cycle? A lot, lots of work beforehand? Yeah, so that when somebody sits down and orders it, it can come out five seven minutes later.
Andrew:Execution is quick with fresh pasta yeah yeah, but it's a lot of uh behind the scenes preparation yeah but I I probably didn't appreciate pasta half as much as I should have before this place and and now I I can't. You know it's hard for me to eat pasta from anything that I make because it's because it's I don't put in the same work in my kitchen and uh, and it's when it's good, it's just so good and I love getting to be around that.
Doug:Talk to me a little bit more about local and seasonality and some of your partners. You know the purveyors that you use. Can you share? Some of the relationships, I'm sure.
Andrew:Yeah, yeah, part of that I think you know. When we first first opened, there was a farmer's market in our parking lot. That had already been there for years and that was in some ways itself ahead of the time of there now being farmer's markets everywhere. And that was great because we would just walk over there every morning on Saturdays, meet people and see what they had, and that was. It was just like easy and natural to then work with what was there at that time and of course that has become hopefully the. The main way that all great restaurants source and think about what they serve that's right Is what's in season and what is nearby, and and who can you develop relationships with. So we've had quite a few farmers and purveyors that we've worked with, sometimes this whole 12 years.
Doug:Yeah.
Andrew:Who Cooks For You Farm is is like dear friends of the restaurant They've grown into being like fully certified organic.
Doug:Are they up in New Bethlehem? Yeah, yeah.
Andrew:Yeah, A little bit of a drive but not far.
Doug:Just actually bought some stuff from them at the squirrel hill farmer's market. Yeah, just this past Sunday.
Andrew:Still my favorite tomatoes One one in the. My favorite tomatoes when the summertime is really rare and they're just the best. We get quite a bit as much as we can basically every week from Cold Co Farm, which is our buddy, jason Odo, and a whole wonderful talented team. But they're also in the Bloomfield Farmer's Market for everyone else's benefit.
Doug:Yeah.
Andrew:In like Verona area Lots of you know. In the winter they grow lots of like bitter greens and heartier lettuces and things like that, and in the summer my favorite things are peppers yeah we'll have weeks where we have like five, six different kinds of peppers and different menu items, and that's just because they're wonderful and tasty, of course.
Andrew:So you know there's a farm in uh down south it's not far from mount pleasant called uh Footprints. We love them. Jeremy and Ellen have been. You know we've been probably not got to meet them probably six, seven years ago, but they some of the best pork we've ever had oh yeah they.
Andrew:They specialize in in meats mostly, though, we get vegetables from them too. Okay, and part of it is they. They were growing things for their animals and trying to make them as good as possible yeah, and then they're like well, actually this is, everyone should eat this, not just our pigs. That's right, and we had, so we've got some of the first asparagus of this spring. We got from them, but we also recently got, for the first time ever, ate an entire pig. What to?
Doug:butcher yourself which we butchered ourselves. You broke it down in-house. Yeah, yeah, oh, that it was quite a day. It was quite a day.
Andrew:And for that, partly like we're grateful to have a really talented, passionate kitchen team for whom that kind of project is something that they can do but they want to do they want to learn and look forward to some challenge like that.
Doug:Right and to also A. You know, hone your butchery skills. Yep and B know that you're not wasting any part of that animal. You're trying to figure out how to incorporate all of it, whether it's on the dish or in the stock or whatever. Absolutely.
Andrew:Yeah, yeah, and that's an important way of thinking about food in every culture. It's particularly specific to a lot of Italian culture to like your ragu is for this, your steak cut is for that, but nothing is wasted. Everything is found, you know. If your bread's starting to get stale, it becomes a soup. That's right, you know, and we very much are inspired, I think, by that sense of frugality and but also like respect for the quality of all these ingredients and therefore to waste as little as possible.
Doug:It kind of goes back to your term. You know intentionality with everything you guys are doing. Yeah, that's what I think I love about it and that's why the quality has been so consistently good for well over a decade.
Andrew:Yeah, Thank you, it's. It's some. You know, Justin and I have worked together now 12 years or more and we always have these the moments late at the end of it, even just like it's a Thursday, and you're like, oh, we still have this weekend to roll through, oh, this is so much. We're always like everybody is working so hard, not just showing up, and that can be tiring, but part of it is what drives all of us, I think, to. It's why it's so rewarding and why we've done it for longer time than other places might have. And I think you know many things that we're fortunate just to. People are so supportive and come in and make the place their own, but also the staff make the place their own and bring a lot of passion and ideas and books and everything else with them to what they do.
Doug:Well, let's talk about people for a minute, but I also have a couple more questions around food and beverage, but you're really getting my mind in the place of number one. I've seen, just from your Instagram, the patrons that are coming in, that are other chef and owners. You know, the folks from Deanoia's are having dinner at the bar. Yeah, of course I mean, that's just the they actually met at the bar, did they yeah? Oh my gosh.
Andrew:Dave and Amy are dear friends of good friends of mine, very, very close with Justin and his wife Caitlin. So the story that was great. Caitlin was a ballerina, full-time professional in the Pittsburgh ballet and at the time Amy was like her best friend who worked at the ballet and the whole crew of ballerinas would come and hang out at bar Marco a lot many years ago now, wow, mostly in like a late night setting. Yeah, come and hang out at bar marco a lot many years ago now. Well, in there, mostly in like a late night setting, yeah, and one night.
Andrew:So that was how justin met his now wife was through her being a guest who came in over and over wow but also dave and amy were, by happenstance, I guess, sat next to each other at the bar one night and started chatting, and you know, now they have a wonderful restaurant down the street and d annoyance is a combination of their names. Yes, yes, yeah.
Doug:Yeah Well, I'll have to talk to them sometime.
Andrew:That would be great. Yeah, I'm sure they would love to. Yeah, in the early years of Bar Marco, a lot of what we did was like guest chefs every week on Mondays, as we used to call it no menu Monday. So, people would come, come in, and we'd usually yeah, the name was just that we wouldn't have time even to like type up or hand out a physical menu.
Andrew:We would just describe whatever what it was verbally yeah, and that was really exciting and partly, in ways, we didn't know till later yeah, helped us meet a lot of people before they had taken on a full project that grew into a whole restaurant and in many cases like, brought tons of inspiration to us but also, hopefully, I think, gave a good platform for folks as they were starting out.
Doug:Kate and tomas, good friends of mine that drew apteca exactly started as like a pierogi pop-up yeah, pierogi versus whatever falafel or whatever.
Andrew:I remember them doing lots of that and they had so much hustle as, and now it's times a million how much they work and think about everything. But they, you know, got to build already a real cool following for what?
Andrew:they were doing and then come in probably once or twice and do that same thing in our little restaurant and then that just helps all of us have more connection. So it's easier when we're in each other's places later, yeah, to recognize and ask good questions and support each other in the work you're trying to do.
Doug:I know. One other business pair I want to talk about is Jamilka and Diane from Lilith. I've seen pictures and I don't know if I remember going to the little truck on the side, but Jamilka was in the kitchen and they also did sort of a side truck for a little bit in the early years. Was Jamilka in as a head chef or one of these chefs?
Andrew:Yeah, she came in her first, she worked for us for many years. Okay, yeah, I guess technically she was probably hired to be a sous chef right when she first started, but like it wasn't that long as I'm remembering where she became kind of the head chef Justin was working in the kitchen but still, you know, part owning so also has to. He had to step away and do business stuff. Yeah, yeah, right, and do business stuff. Yeah, yeah, right. And she of course already at that point tons of skill and passion and so much that she could do.
Andrew:It was wonderful to see that she took the basically one of her next steps in her big journey of being a chef, worked with us, yeah, for many years. It was wonderful, and she and Diane are both really good friends of Justin and I in part from all these years where we worked together. Diane ran the pastry and dessert side of our program for a long time as well, and partially they overlapped for a while. This is, I'm sure, probably where they first met, but also have been on their own different paths to other places, and Lilith is, of course, just such an exciting, fun new thing that's open Right from the start.
Andrew:Yeah, I have so much respect for all of that they do and they work so hard but so intentionally. It's funny, of course, as you all get more established and you, each of us, has gone from like being the person just making one thing to the person who has to think about the concept of the whole thing and what sort of environment you want to create for work or for guests, and they're the right, absolutely the right people to get to dictate all of that and create a place that fits what they want. And I think, yeah, we've, I've only got to go actually eat in Lilith once.
Andrew:But they're but they're it's. But then they recently came actually and hung out with Justin and I one day when we were doing like a wine sale on a. Sunday afternoon, which was a real fun, chaotic day where he hadn't planned out which happens a lot, but it's just getting to sit and talk with them. All of us have been through so many things and the restaurant world is small but big and it's good to hear from each other.
Doug:I do think you you really nailed it for me of how much you've been able to give an experience to someone and then also get back and then enjoy that success for everybody. Yeah, I also want to just talk about since we're talking about the people part of the business something that you as an establishment really made some waves with a few years back now is eliminating tipping. Can you give us sort of the cliff notes of when did it happen, why were you thinking about it and some of the response you got, not only only locally, but even in a national fashion, right, yeah, it was.
Andrew:It's been probably, I think, eight years or more right since we made this shift and it was like something we thought about and talked about internally amongst the like sort of the leadership or whatever, for a while. But we definitely didn't have any idea how big of an impact it would be, both short term and how much people wanted to hear about it or talk to us, and it became this sort of funny national news thing for a little while. Yes, but also again, how much it really positively impacted what we were ever since. And the short version is we were thinking through we've grown enough, we've been here a few years. Some of the things you want to see, what do you want to do next? And part of it is like we have a bunch of really wonderful talented people working here. How do you keep them forever? Yeah, and how do you? Yeah, exactly that. How do you make sure that there's there's a way for them to feel like there's they're on a path that is sustainable?
Andrew:that they can do beyond week to week busy night.
Doug:Living on good tips and you don't know. That's such a risky way to live and so many people do.
Andrew:Yeah, and it can be super lucrative and therefore feels like it works.
Andrew:And it does work for people, but I think for us and some of it due to our size being small but bigger occasionally we have a big event space and a small little dining room in the basement for fine dining. There's times when there's a lot going on, but it's a small restaurant. To build a core team that can stay for a long time was really ideal to try to figure out how do we do this differently, and so we moved away from the boom and bust of any given night into we're all here for a long time, and that means that the prices reflect everything, which is like. Hopefully it's a long story to tell up to everybody who comes in, cause it's so different than other restaurants in Pittsburgh, but but it means that, like each of us also thinks about work in a longer term way. You have health insurance, you have vacation time, you have a set 40 hour a week schedule, you know what your pay is every two weeks, like any other normal quote unquote job and and that really changes a lot of the possibility of longevity.
Doug:It flows out into the guest experience. Right, it's not about customer service but, like true, you know, relaxed hospitality, like you're saying, with the experience that you want to create. It's not necessarily rushed, it's an intimate place and so no one's going anywhere anytime fast and it's okay.
Andrew:Yes, and yeah, that longevity has meant people come in and there's familiar faces still working there. We love that, by the way in Pittsburgh working there.
Doug:We love that, by the way, in Pittsburgh we do. We love that. Oh my gosh. And you're in a neighborhood where we really love that.
Andrew:Yes, right, yeah, yeah. None of us can be like do your heart behind the cheese counter but there's some. If we could any of us could work anywhere that long. It would be amazing.
Andrew:I think the ability to have familiarity, to remember that somebody loves their pasta this way or somebody wants that drink whenever they sit down before they make their decisions about dinner, is what makes any great restaurant tick Right. And uh, and we don't have to like figure that out through keeping notes necessarily. A lot of it's just us remembering who these people are, cause we've been here every night and I think, yeah, think, yeah, we, we were so fortunate to have folks be able to make it their home professionally and it be this thing that they want to do for a longer time.
Andrew:It's their career instead of just their sort of side hustle yeah um and restaurants, including ours, need to have space for all different stages of career. There's people who do want to just work with great food yeah, you're going to have some natural turnover too.
Doug:Sure, it's part of just the entire scene of a restaurant industry, but you're making sort of the best possible environment happen.
Andrew:Yeah, and you're right that it trickles down to the guest experience. I haven't talked about that much yet, but I think we do. I spend a lot of time trying to think through what's it feel like to come in, to sit down, to order, to have things come over to, like every part, from when you walk in the door till when you walk out and the and it's, it's subtle, what makes any place work or not work. Some of it is interpersonal, some of it is just. If you find something familiar, that that's what you need tonight on the menu, or I wanted to be surprised by something.
Andrew:What's this spaghetti with lobster in it? You know, and, and those are, we each kind of find our way to meet folks in different ways, give them sort of the best of our choice and plans and professional skills, but also like help, tailor to the what they want, what they are looking for, what kind of night they want to have. And that is the, the warmth of what, how somebody walks you through the options, the nature of somebody being able to take care of you, but quietly and silently, while you and your friends just have a good time. Right, sometimes we're in the front putting on a show, Sometimes we're just putting a wine glass down and disappearing, silent, almost non-interruption interruptions.
Andrew:right, yeah, just little check-ins right, and so those you know, the best sort of front of house people, all of us, I think develop just a ton of subtle empathy for what is going on yeah and that's a constant work that you'll never be perfect at, but it is like learning how to interpret what somebody is looking for and give it to them is a magic thing when it happens, and everybody, even the person giving that experience, really benefits from that energy when it happens. This is Andrew Hefner, I'm from Bar Marco and you're listening to the Pittsburgh Dish.
Doug:I would imagine that because you have a more long-term staff, you know how to pick up the cues and support each other.
Andrew:Oh yeah, one of the things about the no tips is that everybody is on one team. Yeah, there's no incentive to take more tables than somebody else, or not?
Doug:clamoring over each other or rushing your folks through or anything like that, right.
Andrew:Or even like there's no need to necessarily like upsell a dish.
Jon:Overdo it yeah.
Andrew:Because then you'll get a bigger tip. It's like we have different things for different nights. Somebody does want to come and have an extra fancy, longer, bigger dinner Great, but that's because of that, not because we're trying to like subtly make more money or whatever. Yes, that not because we're trying to like subtly make more money or whatever, yes, and and within the teams and restaurants, it's so easy to actually sort of be up, you're on your own little island, it becomes a competition and that sort of like a sales fight, if you will, and I don't know, you know again, that works well for some people in some settings, yeah, but I for us, instead, it's this little dining room we can.
Andrew:You can see all of it by just turning your head, you know, yeah, it's this little dining room we can. You can see all of it by just turning your head, you know. Yeah, it's great for us to have the ability to easily jump in and help this table or that table or this bar seat. All of us are sort of doing a little bit of everything, even if we have sections or areas of focus. And even the kitchen is very.
Andrew:You know, it's a different set of skills and work in large part but they're all very aware of what it is we're trying to do out front, as, hopefully, we are very aware of what it is they're trying to do in the back right, how those things work together and there isn't the like us versus them that happens within teams in a lot of restaurants, I mean, and it's some of it's unavoidable because people are people and we all can you have like almost like sibling dynamics sometimes, but but that is some of the nature of it and okay, I think, yeah, we've able to take away some of that competition and and with guests, you take away some of the like transactional ways that service can feel it's. It's less about all that. That part is secondary to experience and yeah, and stories and food and you know the things themselves. Again, the more you give back, I think, the more you get. None of this has hurt your business to experience and stories and food and the things themselves Again.
Doug:the more you give back, I think, the more you get. None of this has hurt your business in any way.
Andrew:No Right.
Doug:Right, I do want to jump to a couple of other things that we haven't talked about yet. Sure, so we've mentioned a few times the dining room is a small area, but you have some more space, it's true. So tell me about the Union Hall, is that what?
Andrew:you call the upstairs. Okay, yeah, we call it that and, partly because that's what it used to be, it was like a union, a union hall in a different life of the building. Yeah, there's now a giant, bigger union hall behind us, a whole like headquarters.
Doug:Oh, that's right, right behind yeah.
Andrew:And I don't know if it was them or a different one, but this was probably at least back to like the 60s. But we, uh, but we have used that moniker and it's sort of this catch-all for all the different things we do up event space.
Doug:Yeah, it's a blank canvas really, it really is yeah and it's.
Andrew:We've been so fortunate to have that space and then slowly figure out best ways to utilize it that fit what we're doing. So we host, host anything from you know 15-person birthday dinner that's just a little too big for the dining room. Up to a wedding for 65 people and the ceremony right into a dinner, right into dancing. I love that. We do art. There's always work on the walls and curating that to be something that's thoughtful and intentionally part of the experience and, yeah, a whole host of things that we couldn't quite ever pull off in a 30-seat dining room happen up there.
Doug:I've been there for several things, so I was going to say art gallery, big birthday parties, long communal tables. I also have an inside knowledge that a movie set around what 2014? Yeah, yeah so my husband was working as the art director on fault in our stars. That was a crazy time. You shot the upstairs as if it was a fine dining restaurant as well. Different set though lights and things.
Andrew:Yeah, they took over the upstairs of the building for a couple weeks yeah built some false walls to look like there was like kick doors into a kitchen, a whole bunch of different lighting and tables. They even put like scaffolding with trees on it outside, as though it was on the first floor, even though of course it's on the second. It's crazy movie people.
Doug:It was.
Andrew:Yeah, and the best. In some ways, I think they had a bunch of us be extras in the scene. Oh, that's great and so most of us that were all working at the time were there, for you know, it was a long day, I'm sure. Oh yeah, it was a 12, 14-hour shooting Easily, but we were. You know, we're all in our costumes and walking through the background of all these things.
Doug:Have you had any other movies shoot there, any other locations?
Andrew:Yeah, we've had had. There's been a lot of like table reading kind of things where they just need a big space but they're shooting on some of the sound stages that aren't too far away. Yeah, well, we've been very I mean we've been very fortunate. There's lots of people that come to the strip district from out of town. Yes, a lot of that is the film community, because usually they stay in the strip.
Doug:They often stay in the yeah for housing, yeah and 31st street studios yeah, it been a.
Andrew:really we didn't plan for this or know, but it's been a wonderful. Part of who our regulars have become is all the folks that are in for this production or that one, sometimes only for maybe a few weeks, other times for a year or two, or they come back, or they recommend it, and so then you have this sort of cachet right, yeah, and that means so much to us.
Andrew:We're always going to be this small place where you're not putting billboards up. It's all about like somebody telling someone else they had a good time and that brings somebody new in. But the film community has been a huge support to what we do. I love it.
Doug:Let's talk briefly about the wine room and even your wine selection. I think you talk about natural wines. Give me a little more information about all of that yeah, I'd love to.
Andrew:So the yeah, the wine room itself is a little space downstairs. It's in the basement underneath our main dining room. Seats about 10, maybe 12 people if we really pack it in, and it's available each night that we're open, but for a slightly different experience than anywhere else. It's a five-course chef's tasting menu and we do wine pairings with each course. That's grown out early on. I think we, probably first or second year we were there A lot of it around Jamilka, okay, and her interest in doing more fine dining things that weren't quite possible in the dining room with the size and the nature of what we did at the time. Yes, yes, that weren't quite possible in the dining room with the size and the nature of what we did at the time.
Andrew:Yes, and but it also has really allowed us to do more kind of focused and different idiosyncratic. Maybe.
Andrew:Wine program the, the focus on natural wine, started early, early, early, but that is like a thing that also is similar to the way we've chosen what vegetables we work with and it's winemaking that's done with a sense of long-term impact in the nature, using organic practices or even biodynamic farming, thinking about, in a sense, what you don't do in the land as much as what you do and when you're making wine itself, there's a whole lot of ways that that's grown and changed, especially in the in modern times where you want something to always taste the same so that it can be a discernible product. But then, in order to do that, there's things you're adding to change the color or the sweetness or the texture that are different from what it was as an agricultural product.
Doug:So going with a more natural wine or natural winemakers, you're sort of tamping down all of that intrusion into the industrial side of trying to keep it the same, Because year after year it's a product just like any other fruit and it is going to change a little bit and weather is changing all the time, but it always has as well.
Andrew:separate from bigger conversations. There's need to understand that sometimes it was sunnier or there was hail or there was lots of rain and that changes what things are going to taste.
Andrew:like the best winemakers, just like the best farmers can often sort of craft beauty anyway but, you're having to deal with these bigger elements that can't be controlled, and that's part of what makes them beautiful and interesting. They're only a marker of this year or this place. So we've done that kind of wine for a long time, and it tends to be much smaller scale farming, smaller quantities of a lot of these things, particularly by the time they get to us from, in many cases, italy, france, germany.
Doug:Most of these are imported. Quite a bit.
Andrew:There's a very growing scene in the US and we are happy to be a part of that too. We've had a lot of wine from upstate New York, finger Lakes region, west Coast. There's a lot Particularly for us. We've had a lot of great wine from Oregon. Yeah, like Willamette Valley and that kind of area yeah there's a winery over there that we love, called Maloof, that the winemakers have been to visit us.
Andrew:It was right before COVID, I guess 2019. We're in works with them to do a wine that they made, that's a Bar Marco wine, quote, unquote which we'll hopefully have by the fall.
Andrew:That's amazing, we had some fun Zoom calls so far to plan out exactly what that would be that fits what they're doing but is still like sort of italian in our ways, and that'll be a really fun thing. We've we, so you know there's great wine like that happening in the us too, but a lot of the program is focused on italian wine, as you might imagine.
Doug:Yeah, and I love french, so there's also a lot of french okay now did you guys have you all visited some of these like wineries? I think generally you've made some trips just to inform what you're doing, right.
Andrew:Yeah, yeah, and that's the thing we did, some of it early on and informally, where it was just like well, I want to go there. Let's take a few of us and make it for work and I think, but especially as we've grown into the place, that we are making that intentionally part of our cycle has been really important. And one of the big things was we did this trip to Piedmont totally with the whole staff. Amazing that had been. Yeah, it was wild and wonderful.
Doug:It's probably the best team builder I've ever heard of. Yeah.
Andrew:Oh I, yeah, Having experienced it, it absolutely was that. It was something, in part, that you're looking forward to for all the time that we're planning it.
Andrew:And then, of course, because it was going to be in 2020, it was delayed about two years before it made sense to all uproot and go somewhere else. But, to the experience, we spent basically about 10 days more than half of that all together, and then some of that all split up checking things out, but being in Italy, and particularly this region that has so much of the wine we carry and pour, is from this little area.
Andrew:So much of the menu is informed by the things that are very traditional to this place Getting to go and see what the vineyards look like and smell like and taste like, and why this grape thrives here, why Nebbiolo is hardly grown anywhere else but right here, somehow it's magic was on.
Andrew:You know, there's no sort of trade-off for doing that in person and doing it together, of course, and we since then, of course there's, we just always are talking about it to anyone that comes in, probably to a fault, where they're like all right, all right, piedmont, I get it, but there's a giant wall in the back behind the bar with a map, now that is, of one of the little regions within piedmont where we got to visit one of the wineries and the. We were like this is a cool map you have, and he just mailed it to us the next time we ordered wine from them. So I'm, of course it's going on the wall, of course it is topographical maps of a tiny region. Let's go, let's do it, and I think, but again, that's, we hope to be able to make trips like that yeah as possible, probably every few years, as much as is reasonable.
Andrew:But it's so much for us all look forward to, for things like that.
Doug:I mean, we talked about a couple of these spots already, but like the folks at Deanoia's, the folks up in Apteka, they all go back over to make trips to again inform themselves on what's going on with their cuisine. So so, smart yeah.
Doug:I just want to add a little footnote here. We haven't really talked about your bar and bar cocktails, so let's just say you've got to go in and check it out, because the bartenders and the craft cocktails that you're making I think that was maybe the first thing I ever experienced, yeah, really was was a great cocktail and uh, I love peppa pig. Okay, is that?
Andrew:still on the menu. It just came off, but it was on the screen. Well, you know it's just yes, oh, I think we have a lot of fun. Yeah, jason, of course, for many years is the one is the driver of that, and he spends a lot of time thinking through it, the same way as the kitchen does.
Jon:Yeah.
Andrew:What are products, ingredients, flavors that are here, but also, in the case of cocktails, what can we like, save and have for later? We make a syrup now, when it's at its best, but also we can freeze it and suddenly we can be enjoying fruit flavors in February. And some of those things are about the timing of something immediate, but also something to remind us of what we wish it was when it's cold. Yeah, what an experience. Remind us of what we wish it was when it's cold. Yeah, what an experience. And he puts a lot of thought into these cocktails. So most of the menu are, you know, are each sort of very different from each other, but a whole sort of story of different kinds of cocktails, different kinds of ingredients, much of which is sort of in in-house things and many of the staff collaborate on this in different ways.
Andrew:We do aspects of that with all the events programming upstairs too. There's a lot of days where there's as much sort of cooking quote unquote happening to make good cocktails as there is prep for pasta in the front of house food menu. So, yeah, it's a huge part of what we do and a big you know hat off to Jason specifically, but really like all the folks that have come and spent time behind the bar. This is Jason Renner.
Doug:That's right. Yeah, um, we haven't really talked about you. Yeah, um, I'd love to talk a little bit about your background and this love of food you have now. Yeah, can I?
Andrew:ask where you grew up. Yeah, I grew up here in Pittsburgh. You did in part. I was born and raised, I suppose, in East Liberty and my parents were like, really both from Pittsburgh too, but lived in the suburbs after college, wanted to be more rooted in the city itself. That's just all I knew when I was little then. And they were really.
Andrew:They had three kids and a lot of the hustle around the house and they're just, I think, making as many things from scratch in the kitchen as they could, mostly because it's what you can afford. So I remember seeing like, oh, yogurt is a thing you make, not a thing that you buy out of a tub, and they were doing their best and just hustling. But I think even early on I started to see little things about food that are interesting when it's done yourself. And we have also been very fortunate to have good connections within my family to Italians. There's a woman who studied abroad with my dad when she was in high school, who has basically embraced my grandparents as her grandparents, our families as her family. So even when I was probably 14, we went to visit. She has a couple of sons my age, oh okay, and we spent a whole bunch of time in Italy together and I've been thankfully been able to go back many times to visit with them.
Andrew:And you know, as I've grown up and their kids have grown up and we're all the ones that are working now, I've, of course, somewhat humorously, found my way into having a whole career doing Italian things. And the end of this trip to Piedmont, I went and stayed with them for a few days. How special and it is. This journey of like. Yeah, now I even know why you make your pasta that way and I still want to keep hearing more about why this and not that and all those things.
Andrew:But the process of spending time in Italy I was very fortunate to get to do even before, you know, when I was young and and it's been a huge part of you know what I do now. I think I always loved taking care of other people and found that in other jobs I was doing before this. The like, the energy of somebody having a good experience is huge for me, as I think it is for any hospitality person. But the uh, the reasoning behind why and how, is only what came later from doing it many, many, many times at Bar Marco.
Doug:Tell me a little bit about um. Do you like to cook? Yeah, yeah.
Andrew:I love to cook, do you, and I don't? Yeah, of course, like probably most people in the restaurants. It's not like every night. Most of the time it's leftovers at 10, 30, sure, but when I have the chance I have, especially in the last number of years where we all had more time at home, right, I also got more into. Well, let's, we can. Let's make bolognese from scratch. I've watched that happen. I'm gonna do it. Or I love Thai food, but how do you actually make it? Yeah, at home, let's put these things together and do it. Or I love Thai food, but how do you actually make it?
Andrew:Yeah, at home, let's put these things together and do it, and so my wife and I both have got to, like, I think, really jump in more and more to different kinds of cuisines and things we grew up with but or or things we never had had at all before, sometimes informed by our travels and other times just informed by a good cookbook. There's a lot of the being in this world that I love in part is that the someone's always going to bring you a recommendation here's a restaurant you should check out when you're in this place. They also have a book. Here's a whole recipe you could make at home. And then I find myself doing that same thing, telling everybody about places they should go or things they should cook and eat, even if they have nothing to do with Bart Marco and I think that's yeah. I love thai food. I love chinese food. I love I eat pasta all day. So usually at night or at home I'm making other cuisines indian food actually did you?
Doug:were you a pretty open eater as a young kid? No, you were picky.
Andrew:I was terrible you were all, I my, my poor parents. It was like, just like, no vegetables at all did I want to have. They'd make all these things with decent amounts of thought, more or less. And then I'm just like can I have cheese pizza? Can I have macaroni and cheese with hot dogs in it? And that's all I ever wanted. And honestly I think probably not until I first like was abroad. Is that when things started to change. Oh fennel.
Jon:It tastes really good.
Andrew:I've never even been willing to try here. I have to because it's not my parents right. And and then you start to realize how many other flavors there are and how tasty these things can be, and and you know you don't have to just eat meat and cheese, as good as those things can be I'm hopeful for my nephews to become like you, because they're there. It was was a journey, I mean, and embarrassingly like for many years in ways now it's like I've made other people have to make a whole different thing for me.
Andrew:When they made a whole meal. Oh my gosh, I could die.
Doug:Listen, you've recovered.
Andrew:Yes, now, I love almost everything and that's, I think, maybe the goal with food.
Doug:So, andrew, we've really talked about your journey and the journey of Bar Marco. I'd love to ask for the restaurant. Do you have any future plans? Goals?
Andrew:events, aspirations in the next year or more. Yeah, yeah, we're always. I think we try to spend as much time as we can thinking about that, like where are we going, what are we trying to do, instead of just it's so easy, because it's very demanding in the moment, to just sort of be in a tunnel. But we try to sit down and look beyond this week, month, season and I think some of what is exciting is little things that we've built into the year of Barmark or the patterns that we do, little traditions that we have around the seasons. That really helps, I think, take us out of that tunnel vision. So I'm looking forward to every year to like well, it'll be Beaujolais days so we can celebrate the harvest and the
Andrew:first wine of the year and we can all stop for a minute, sip something juicy and light and funny, but like account for this miracle that getting a whole year worth of food and wine is happening again. We'll do that in the winter. There'll be truffles We'll get them from Italy in our case but we can all smell that, eat that, have that and remember sort of like the miracle that some little mushroom grows around the base of this plant. And here it is, even if it costs more than anything any of us ever eat and needs a little dog to find it.
Doug:Yeah, yeah, I love just the fact that you are celebrating the season, yeah, throughout the year, and that is your event, you know in mind is to celebrate the season yeah, we have plans to, yeah, have this house wine I was saying when, when do you think that one? I think it should be, by early fall.
Andrew:We're still we have to finalize it's.
Andrew:You know pennsylvania is complicated yeah, to finalize a label, which will probably be an old school like drawing of the front of the building, which is fun, but then get that all approved through the state and then but we'll buy basically a whole barrel of wine, so many many cases, and so then it'll be on the menu hopefully for a year. That's great and something we can take through a bunch of seasons. Yeah, but I hope that'll be here by early fall. We hope to have actually a few winemakers from Italy it sounds like they're going to be over and they're not often winemakers coming to Pittsburgh. Thankfully, because we've been focused on this little world, we get their attention a little more and have visitors there's, I think a couple that will hopefully be sort of gracing us. So we'll do little takeover nights where Sanfello, this producer in Tuscany, is here, we have six of their wines and actually he's sitting at the bar.
Andrew:So once you order anything, he'll come tell you about it, and that's the best, because that's the thing that is maybe missing in wine in Pittsburgh. Is this real? Understanding of how it came from and who's doing it, not just some far off place.
Doug:I love that. I can't imagine like oh, I'm really enjoying this glass. Oh well, there is the maker from Italy sitting at the bar.
Andrew:In some cases he doesn't even speak English. His son does.
Doug:And that's all we can do.
Andrew:Even better.
Doug:Yeah, it is. It is Okay, Andrew. If someone hasn't visited the restaurant and they want to find you or even follow you, can you plug your website, your social handles, so people can make a reservation or? Just check out some pictures.
Andrew:Totally yeah. So probably Instagram is what we use the most. I think, like most restaurants, it's just Bar Marco PGH. It's pretty live with the different things that we have going on, a lot of little stories. Part of that is that there are new menu items every few weeks. There's a special bottle of wine that we pour by the glass every Wednesday and we choose something different. I choose something different every week. I get to do that when I get to work today.
Doug:So that's why it's good to actually go visit your social sites and even your website, little up-to-date things.
Andrew:But yeah, our website has sort of the broad offerings of what we have and you can make reservations there, which is all through talk, which is a system that we use. That's really been terrific. It's always something where we want folks to give us a call or just just walk in if they're nearby. There's a lot of times when there's totally space for a few more people to sit over here, have dinner over there. But you know, if you know you want to come in, it's a tiny restaurant. Make a reservation, that's perfect.
Doug:Is the website the same as the Instagram handle BarMarcoPGH. com?
Andrew:All right, it sure is yeah.
Doug:All right, Andrew Heffner, I have one more question for you. Of course, the name of our show is The Pittsburgh Dish. What was the best dish you've eaten this week?
Andrew:All right, Let me think Well, honestly. So there's a new but I already forget the name of it a new Indian restaurant in my neighborhood. It opened in East Liberty, probably like a week ago 10 days and my wife has more normal hours. She went at dinner and had a great time. So we went just on Monday and they make this like like hydro body, like eggplant dish, and it was so good and also like more than you know.
Andrew:I think a lot of indian food that I've had, especially the stuff I make is is about all these flavors and ingredients. But then I missed the presentation because I don't know what I'm doing besides just getting the flavors together. They had this whole you know perfect curry and then three little eggplants that had been fried with a little you know dressing to the top of them, laid all out, and it was both beautiful and delicious and that's just never the Indian food I make. So I was so impressed by the visual as much as the taste. So it's, yeah, just a really terrific place. It's in the location where there had been Union Pig and Chicken. So, to sound very Pittsburgh, you give directions based on what used to be somewhere. It's by the where there was a Kmart.
Doug:Reva Modern Indian Cuisine. That's right, that's right.
Andrew:But yeah, they're, they're doing great things from what I experienced a couple of nights ago. Go check them out.
Doug:Yeah, please do. Go check them out. Yeah, please do.
Jon:Best bite of the week.
Doug:Andrew Heffner, thank you so much for being on the Pittsburgh Dish.
Andrew:Yeah, thanks for having me, it's been a treat.
Doug:After having such a lovely conversation with Andrew, we're just going to say Bar Marco is our restaurant recommendation of the week. Go there. Up next if you have a love for stuffed foods like we do. Our recipe of the week gives a new twist on a tortilla. If you're following my social feed at Doug Cooking, you know I'm a contestant on Season 3 of The Great American Recipe on PBS. This week's recipe comes from another contestant, Jon Hinojosa of San Antonio, Texas, and he shared with me his recipe for Tlacoyos. I think I'm getting that right. Let's give him a call and learn a little bit more about this dish. This is Jon. Hey, jon, it's Doug.
Jon:Hey Doug, how are you doing?
Doug:I'm great. How are you? Good, good, good. So I'll start by just saying it's so nice to hear your voice, the dish that we're going to talk about, let me try my best. It's tlacoyos. How did?
Jon:I do Tlacoyos.
Doug:That's exactly right.
Jon:Tlacoyos.
Doug:Tlacoyos, tlacoyos. All right, I love it and it's sort of like an empanada, but sounds like a little bit thinner, right.
Jon:It's, I would say, a little thicker, thicker, and what's interesting and funny about it is that it's based on the region and the area that you are cooking, and so empanadas are a good example for people. And then the other piece is that Ingrid's arepes are just sort of you know them circular filled with items.
Doug:Yes.
Jon:Sopes are sort of open. Huaraches are the most, I guess, most traditional, similar to tlacoyos, and they look like the, you know, huarache, a man's sandal or woman's sandal, because of the shape of them, yes. And then gorditas, chicken tacos. They're all just variations of using corn as the main sort of ingredient. So you know, there's a bunch of examples about it.
Doug:Perfect, and for our listeners that maybe haven't seen the recipe on the blog yet, you're making sort of a thicker corn tortilla, so we don't need a fancy tortilla press. We can do that between like two pieces of like a plastic freezer bag or something, and then you're filling it with some really yummy stuff. Is that right?
Jon:That's exactly right and, again, there's no real special equipment. The reality is that you can easily do it with your hands without plastic, or use plastic. I always use exactly what you described a freezer bag that I cut into sort of a square, and just because I have this amazing tortilla press from Oaxaca, I tend to bring it out and use that Of course, I see masa harina in the grocery store more and more often, so this isn't something that's unattainable for any of our listeners here.
Doug:So you have a basic dough recipe with lard or vegetable shortening and the masa and water, and you make these sort of thicker tortillas and then some of the things that you have listed to put inside is like some shredded chicken, some cotija cheese or some crumbly cheese.
Jon:Yeah, that's exactly it. It's really one of these dishes, one of these recipes that you can actually be as creative as you want to. There's nothing wrong about what you do it. Traditionally, these come from Oaxaca, and so they would usually be filled with black beans and shredded Oaxacan cheese. You know, that's a beautiful sort of melty cheese, but I make them sort of in the San Antonio, northern Mexico style, so I use shredded chicken, and it's something that you can pre-make or roast and do yourself, or you could buy something. They're so easy because, literally, if you're a vegetarian, you could just use vegetables, squash and mushrooms. So they're very versatile in sort of just being able to create a recipe that you and your family would love.
Doug:And so what we're doing is we're making a round dough and we're filling it with whatever sort of yummy fillings that we want, and then you are sealing them up, which, as you said to me earlier, it's kind of like an empanada, but maybe a little. Is it a little bigger than an empanada?
Jon:Yeah, it's definitely a little bigger than an empanada and again, empanadas and vacayos and other areas are sort of just different from the region or area that you are, but very much like a teatada, a little bit thicker. The one other sort of just hint that I would give if you're not used to making or using masarina. The big key issue to it is that normally you can make corn tortillas with masarina and you don't need to add anything but warm faucet water. But for these I add a little bit of vegetable shortening and a little bit of baking powder, because it sort of puffs them up. And then the other thing is that I use a little bit of vegetable oil and I lightly fry them. A lot of folks just put them on their komal or their griddle and just cook them until they're done. So it's really again a very sort of versatile recipe.
Doug:And so if you're frying them, you're just doing a shallow fry right, Just like a little bit of oil in a pan.
Jon:You're not deep frying, yeah a little bit of oil Okay, half inch or three quarter inch of oil, and you just want to flip them halfway through.
Doug:And since everything's sort of cooked inside already I mean, these are just a couple minutes on each side I'm sure you can make a whole big batch and you want to have some toppings ready to garnish, right.
Jon:What are some of the things that you love? Yeah, so garnishing is really important, and I think it's again. What I love in a great topping in a garnish is some chopped romaine or iceberg lettuce. There's a crunch factor in it. I think extra cheese on top makes a whole lot of sense. So if I use Oaxacan cheese inside of it, which is going to be sort of melty and gooey, I'll put some crumbled Mexican cheese on top. I'm a big fan of cilantro.
Doug:Do you like cilantro? I love cilantro. I can eat lots of cilantro, but I know folks that don't, so, either, leave it out.
Jon:I've had to change recipes just because of the fact that people really they taste like soap to them and I just think these poor folks because there's so much beautiful cultural foods that use cilantro.
Doug:I guess some easy swaps might be some parsley or maybe just like the greens of like green onion scallions or something.
Jon:That's exactly right. That's a perfect example. I think I use parsley a lot and there's just, you know, people think that it's just for a garnish, but there's a great sort of taste to parsley when you cook it and when you use it as a garnish. So I highly recommend, if you don't like the taste of cilantro and it tastes like soap, to add some parsley.
Doug:John. This all sounds so delicious and it sounds pretty easy actually. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe with us.
Jon:Yeah, absolutely. I'm so happy to be able to contribute to your amazing blog and work that you're doing. You're incredible food, so just let me know. I've got a whole stack of recipes that we can continue to add onto the collection of Mexican and Tex-Mex and Mex-Tex and New Mexican food.
Doug:I would love that. John, if people out there want to find and follow you for more of your food, where can they find you?
Jon:to find and follow you for more of your food. Where can they find you? Yeah, so you know, as part of being on the show, I've actually sort of stepped up my social media game and I'm learning more and more. My sort of way to find me is at John Hinojosa, so it's at J-O-N-H-I-N-O-J-O-S-A. That's all sort of all my social media channels. I'm just launching a website. This week I started doing tours of the food of San Antonio and the tours of the foods of Mexico, so launching opportunities to take people to great excursions of culinary and cultural tourism in Mexico and Mexico City.
Doug:I love this. Congratulations that's so exciting in.
Jon:Mexico and Mexico City. I love this. Congratulations, that's so exciting. The name of that website is yo-creocom Y-O-C-R-E-O dot, c-o-m, and that yo creo means to create, to make, to think, to process, and so the whole idea is with Yo Creo is allow me to create these wonderful sort of concierge opportunities for you to experience San Antonio and Mexico. And then the other great word is creemos and that's working and creating together, sort of what we did on the Great American Recipe.
Doug:Oh, what intentional meeting behind all of that. And, jon, as you said, people can find both of us on this season of The Great American Recipe on PBS I think in most places it's Monday nights, or they can stream it on pbs. org or the PBS app.
Jon:That's exactly right and I've been. You know I've heard from so many different people how you know excited they are and how much they love all of the contestants, and it's a sort of one of those things Doug that I think we walked in as these contestants and the idea that we were going to have to sort of compete with each other, but, as you know, we ended up becoming the closest friends. It became a family just because of our love for food and our love for our culture and our love for learning, do you think?
Doug:I couldn't agree more. So well put, john. Thank you so much for this recipe and for spending some time with me today, and thanks for being on The Pittsburgh Dish.
Jon:Yeah, absolutely Anytime. Doug, great to talk to you, take care.
Doug:If you have a recipe, share it with us. Just go to our website at www. pittsburghdish. com and look for our share a recipe form. That's our show for this week. We'd like to thank all of our guests and contributors, and to Kevin Solecki of Carnegie Accordion Company for providing the music to our show. We'll be back again next week with another fresh episode. Stay tuned.
