{"id":13464,"date":"2015-10-26T13:25:05","date_gmt":"2015-10-26T13:25:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/?p=13464"},"modified":"2015-10-26T13:25:05","modified_gmt":"2015-10-26T13:25:05","slug":"distinguished-district-6-el-asador","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/distinguished-district-6-el-asador\/","title":{"rendered":"Distinguished District 6: El Asador"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Friday, Challenge Detroit’s fourth year cohort\u00a0gave its first presentation of the year. It was also the first\u00a0ever project that our non-profit\u00a0organization has\u00a0worked on with\u00a0the\u00a0City of Detroit. For the project, fellows were split up into teams based on the seven districts\u00a0and sent out to gather stories on small businesses in this expansive city.\u00a0As you have\u00a0hopefully already gathered through my previous blog entries, my team, which was\u00a0assigned to District 6, met some really great people.<\/p>\n

As District 2 Manager Kim Tandy mentioned at the end of our presentations last week, there were a bunch of adjectives that we used collectively as a cohort to describe our experiences and interactions with business owners throughout this five-week process. Two words that come to my mind when I think of the business community in District 6 are loyal<\/em> and local<\/em>. As our team mentioned during our presentation, there was no business owner we met that really believed in the importance of a loyal and local customer base more than El Asador’s owner and head chef, Luis Garza.<\/p>\n

\"\u201cI<\/a>

\u201cI like to see people walk out of my restaurant happy and say \u2018good meal,\u2019” says El\u00a0Asador Chef Luis Garza.\u00a0“It makes you feel good and reminds me how much I love what I do.”<\/p><\/div>\n

Garza cultivated his culinary career at Andiamo, a successful, high-end Italian restaurant chain. During his time at Andiamo, Garza amazed all with his unique creations and certain Mexican dishes that he perfected behind the scenes. It was only a matter of time before\u00a0the ownership at Andiamo took notice of Garza’s talents and\u00a0decided to make him the star\u00a0and Executive Chef\u00a0of their next entrepreneurial\u00a0endeavor, Rojo Mexican Bistro.<\/p>\n

Rojo became an instant success so the powers that\u00a0be\u00a0saw yet another opportunity to expand. To Garza, however, expansion meant less supervision of the\u00a0dishes he had created. After 20 years with the Andiamo group, he made the decision to leave a budding success story to create his own, family-based enterprise.<\/p>\n

In 2013, he opened El Asador Mexican Steakhouse.<\/p>\n

As Garza says, he is \u201cmarried to his restaurant,\u201d working seven days per week perfecting his menu and providing his customers with a fresh, authentic meal. Even though he has made no attempts to advertise for El Asador, Garza says business is booming on word-of-mouth alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the food is good, people will follow it no matter where you are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let this be a reminder for those who\u00a0believe\u00a0failure is an inevitable fate for those trying to start a business outside of Downtown and Midtown. For Garza,\u00a0a lot of the restaurant\u2019s success can be attributed\u00a0to one key factor: family. Both his mother and brother are staples in kitchen at El Asador.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want people who simply work for a paycheck. I want people who have a passion for food.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garza has several improvements planned for El Asador’s future including an outdoor patio. However, first on his agenda is how to accommodate the\u00a0restaurant’s increasing popularity.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes I scratch my head and wonder, ‘why do people come in here?’ They’re packed in like sardines, but they’re happy and they enjoy it.”<\/p>\n

\"Even<\/a>

Even though\u00a0a small\u00a0dining\u00a0room\u00a0is\u00a0not\u00a0ideal for the restaurant’s increasing popularity, Garza says his customers really enjoy it.<\/p><\/div>\n

If you’re in the market\u00a0for an intimate, family-oriented atmosphere with great Mexican food prepared by a passionate chef, visit Luis Garza at El Asador in the Springwells neighborhood of Southwest Detroit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Friday, Challenge Detroit’s fourth year cohort\u00a0gave its first presentation of the year. It was also the first\u00a0ever project that our non-profit\u00a0organization has\u00a0worked on with\u00a0the\u00a0City of Detroit. For the project, fellows were split up into teams based on the seven districts\u00a0and sent out to gather stories on small businesses in this expansive city.\u00a0As you have\u00a0hopefully […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/298"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}