Beyond the Trope of "Authenticity" with Steven Thiel-Martinez of Basalt GR
Thank you for being a part of this. I am really excited to share your story & your restaurant with everyone. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and the origin story of how Basalt came to be?
I’m so glad to be participating! I am originally from Houston, TX but I moved to Grand Rapids in 2007 and back again in 2015 after 3 years back home. There’s something kind of magnetic about GR that really makes it feel like home.
The thing I’ve missed most about Texas though is the food culture there, especially the abundance of breakfast tacos, which are nearly impossible to find here. Basalt is my answer to that - a way to bring a bit of Texas home with me.
When I first met you, you were in the restaurant industry but had shifted your career in many ways. What made you decide to open Basalt?
Yeah, when we met I had just lost a job that was really dear to me - this restaurant I had been working at for 3 years closed somewhat suddenly and a lot of the folks working there suddenly felt kind of lost.
I think I worked at 4 different restaurants in less than a year and I even did some driving and grocery delivery before I made the decision to start working for myself. I had really started to feel disillusioned with the restaurant industry. There was this feeling that I had spent my twenties working really hard to grow and contribute to other people's dreams without having that work and devotion acknowledged or reciprocated.
I’ve loved the industry since my first job, so I couldn’t bring myself to change paths entirely; so I figured I might as well take all of that energy that I was giving to others and give it to something of my own.
And, what was it like starting a new business in the midst of a pandemic?
I started planning and developing at the end of 2019 and I sold my first taco in February of 2020 so the timing didn’t really feel auspicious when March came around and everything shut down.
There have been so many challenges that I never expected to face but I think in the long run the way we’ve been forced to adapt and overcome over the last year and a half has made our foundation so much stronger than if we had opened during “normal” times.
Speaking of overcoming obstacles, what is the one thing you wished people understood about the difficulties of running a small business?
Our biggest challenge is overcoming the assumptions that people have when they eat with us. There’s this idea that food, especially food that is seen as “ethnic food”, should be cheap. That idea has mostly come from huge corporate food chains and fast food, and it’s blinded most folks to the reality that each taco we sell has to support more than just the 4 walls we’re selling it in.
Not only do we put out a really, high quality, from scratch product, but we also start everyone on our team at $15/hr, buy locally whenever possible, and pay all of our other expenses with that taco.
It can be really tough to read a review that complains about our prices and something like our furniture being cheap or that we don’t have “real” plates because I’m not sure how those folks expect me to pay for those things if I’m selling a product for less than it’s worth.
I love knowing that you put so much love and passion into your food. Knowing that you make everything from scratch is the chef’s kiss for me. What is it like being able to marry cultural exchanges within food together?
Well, it’s a whole hell of a lot of fun. I’ve been really careful since day one to not use words like “authentic” or “traditional” in our branding or marketing because that’s not what our food is. We aren’t Mexican food, and we aren’t “traditional” Tex-Mex either.
But we use the concepts, flavors, and foundations of those traditions to inform and inspire our food which is what I think makes it really special. Being free of the notion of food authenticity is also what allows us to be more flexible with our recipes so that we can accommodate our friends who are vegan, gluten-free, etc.
Our Borracho Beans are an amazing example of that flexibility in action. If I were trying to be traditional or authentic our beans would be made with pork and Cerveza; instead, we use tequila to ensure a gluten-free product and we spend time coaxing umami and saltiness out of other ingredients to ensure that the beans are well-rounded and flavorful, but still vegan.
How do you deal with feedback from people who have criticized you that your food isn’t TexMex “enough”?
You know, I think it’s pretty narrow-minded to assume that you know everything about a food culture just because you grew up in a specific place or within a specific community.
I probably had a good head start on Tex-Mex as a person of Mexican descent from Texas, but I didn’t know half as much about Tex-Mex or Mexican food 3 years ago as I do now and I’m learning more every day.
What is your favorite item on the menu? (or, a MUST TRY)
You gotta try the Mommie Dearest. It’s a recipe that I developed with my mom that features a Green Chicken Chorizo. It’s a really fun exploration of how chorizo can be more than what you’re used to.
