Atlanta pop-up Madre Garcia pays culinary tribute to chef’s mother

Garcia, who works for an air conditioner manufacturer, makes weekly trips to the East Atlanta and Piedmont Park farmers markets with appearances at Eventide Brewing in Grant Park. Although he has no formal culinary training, he continues to prepare his family’s dish for holidays and gatherings.

Garcia considered starting his own business more than a decade ago, when food trucks became ubiquitous in the city. He was attending seminars on buying a truck and developing a business plan when his mother suffered a stroke that left her in a vegetative state and ultimately cost him the life. He put aside his plans to care for her, and soon afterward, he married and started a family.

Credit: Courtesy of Madre Garcia

Credit: Courtesy of Madre Garcia

“I had a full-time job and a mortgage to pay,” he said. “I had resigned myself to waiting until the children (4 and 6 years old) graduated from high school to pursue my dream.”

About a year ago, he brought misfortune to his family at a neighborhood meal in Oakhurst, where a friend convinced him he needed to increase his schedule.

For the past eight months, he’s focused on perfecting the San Juan Cuban sandwich, using his family’s pernil recipe and “adding a curve.” After stuffing the meat with four cloves of garlic and spices, he smokes it for six hours and vacuum seals it overnight. He also makes his own ham, from pork shoulder brined for a week then smoked for six to eight hours. The bread, the only component of the sandwich that Garcia doesn’t make, comes from Bread Works International in Stone Mountain.

“Once I set out to create a big Cuban, I broke it down and said, ‘How can I make this unique?’ What can I do that no one else in Atlanta is doing? “, did he declare. “I decided I wanted to do everything from scratch as much as possible. I knew I had the pernil, but I had to perfect everything else.

In addition to upping his culinary game, Garcia also wanted to make sure his business plan was in place. He connected with the University of Georgia’s Small Business Development Center, an organization that pairs aspiring small business owners with advisors. Jason Bitar, who worked for more than 30 years as an entrepreneur and small business owner in the restaurant, business consulting and real estate industries, mentored Garcia and guided him to begin selling at farmers’ markets rather than launching a food truck or brick factory. mortar and mortar company.

“It was a less capital-intensive way to define the concept and determine my target demographic,” Garcia said. “Jason said, ‘It’s much better to make hundred-dollar mistakes than thousand-dollar mistakes.'”

Credit: Courtesy of Madre Garcia

Credit: Courtesy of Madre Garcia

In addition to Cuban, Madre Garcia’s menu offers two other options. Vaca Frita, a Cuban dish that Garcia fell in love with during his travels to Cuba and Miami, sees beef marinated in a mojo sauce with lime, lemon and orange juices, garlic and spices piled on bread and topped with Swiss cheese.

Vegetarian Cubano took Garcia five months to succeed. He experimented with vital wheat gluten and red food coloring to make a fake ham before a few vegetarian friends convinced him to turn away from a processed product and focus on using vegetables. The result is a sandwich made with roasted sweet potatoes, black bean puree, and a blend of jackfruit and tofu marinated in the same garlic and spices that Garcia uses for his pernil. Toppings include dill pickles and cheese (which can be omitted to make the sandwich vegan), as well as pickled Hungarian peppers that he calls poncho peppers, a nod to his grandfather, Francisco, nicknamed Poncho and who grew them in his garden.

The sandwiches are put through a press, with the outside of the bread on the Cubano and Vaca Frita sandwiches brushed with lard from the pork shoulder “to create a nice, flavorful crust,” Garcia said. All sandwiches are served with Gigi Sauce, a creamy cilantro, garlic and lime sauce made to a family friend’s recipe and perfected by Garcia’s mother-in-law, whom her children call Gigi.

Eventually, Garcia hopes to open a physical Mama Garcia store. In the meantime, he’s content to build his pop-up clientele, consistently selling 70 sandwiches within three hours at each event.

The tight menu allows Garcia to focus on perfecting his product while continuing to grow his business and honor his legacy. Her mother, whose maiden name was Garcia, kept her last name of Lynch after her first marriage ended in the 1970s, thinking it would be easier for her to get job interviews with a traditionally Caucasian name.

He also grew up with the last name Lynch, but decided to legally change it to Garcia before getting married. “In terms of my history and who I considered my family, the Garcia family has always been the family that I know, and I wanted to make sure that I passed on that name. Madre Garcia is a way to honor that and the Garcia family recipes I know my mother would smile, look down and be happy.

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