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A rainbow-striped mural with large white letters that say “Pilsen.” Below, three Latino people in masks painted into the mural. (Photo: UChicago Arts)
On this week’s show, we explore Latino food and culture in Chicago’s historic Pilsen neighborhood and hear about how food can bring communities together. We tag along with the podcast In Confianza with Pulso as they try to answer the question: what does a Latino version of the tv show “The Bear” taste like? We’ll head to two restaurants, Cafe Jumping Bean and Pochos, to find out.
Featuring: Making Contact Credits In Confianza with Pulso: “What Does A Latino Version of “The Bear” Taste Like?” Credits
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Transcript:
Lucy Kang: You’re listening to Making Contact. I’m Lucy Kang. The tv show The Bear gives viewers a behind the scenes look at running a restaurant in Chicago as family and work drama ensues. Food is central to the series. Characters talk about food constantly. And the camera often lingers lovingly on painstakingly assembled dishes.
The hit show prompted our friends over at the podcast In Confianza, with Pulso to ask the question: what would a Latino version of The Bear taste like? In Confianza host Liz Rebecca Alarcón went to Chicago’s predominantly Latino Pilsen neighborhood to find out.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: I’m taking myself over to one of Chicago’s famous Latino neighborhoods to eat. I mean, Chicago is one of the most famous food towns in the world. Even one of the most popular TV shows, The Bear is centered around eating and running a restaurant in the Windy City. But what about the stories of some of our Latino entrepreneurs?
What’s happening in the surrounding neighborhoods and what stories do they tell of food, community and identity? Today we head to Pilsen to dine at two establishments: one, a mainstay in the neighborhood for three decades; the second a restaurant that has embraced the complexities of being Mexican, American and Chicagoan. I’m Liz Rebecca, and today we eat our way through Pilsen in our own version of El Oso.
For the last 30 years, Eleazar Delgado has woken up every day and opened the doors to his first and only business, Cafe Jumping Bean. While it’s now an established part of the historically Mexican neighborhood of Pilsen, it was a bit of an outlier. When it opened in 1994, Delgado felt like he was answering a need, specifically the need for coffee in a neighborhood filled with taquerias and restaurant chains.
Even though Delgado felt there was a gap in the neighborhood that he could fill, his concept wasn’t a sure bet. It took some struggle and his own way of convincing the community that Jumping Bean would be a special addition to the neighborhood. I made my way over to Pilsen to chat, drink, and eat with Eleazar Delgado.
Tell us a bit more about where you grew up.
Eleazar Delgado: I grew up in the little village neighborhood here in Chicago until probably I was 13 years old. And then we moved to the south, farther south side of Chicago. My mom was a very diverse cook. Everything from enchiladas and fried chicken.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: With some Mexican flare, I bet.
Eleazar Delgado: No, my dad’s uncles married these two sisters from Tennessee, and when my dad got married, my mom learned to cook from these two ladies. We grew up with a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. I mean traditional, nothing Mexican about it. There was cornbread, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and people would think it was strange because all my friends were Mexican. And it’s like, “What? You have that?”
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: Yeah, [in Spanish] because I’m the same. My family’s from Venezuela. I grew up in Miami, and I relish in the traditional Thanksgiving meal. And I always say we eat everything else all year round. Like in my home, we also had the traditional stuffing and gravy and turkey. So I can relate to that, wanting to have that “traditional American experience” at least once a year.
Eleazar Delgado: When I grew up as a kid, I liked sandwiches. We like different stuff. We like muffins, bagels. We grew up eating different stuff. It wasn’t just spam and tacos and tortas.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: Tell us if you remember your first cup of coffee or if you were a big coffee drinker growing up.
Eleazar Delgado: My first cup of coffee was Taster’s Choice Instant. It was the flavor crystals. My mom would open up the glass jar and the little paper lid, you would peel it off and that smell that you would get. And then if I was lucky, she would make me a small cup.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: How old were you?
Eleazar Delgado: Probably eight.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: That is the most Latino thing ever, Eleazar — drinking cafe con leche when you’re little. I love it. So that early start and that early love of coffee, Eleazar, I know has in large part inspired you opening up this place. Am I right that you were a bike messenger before opening up this shop?
Eleazar Delgado: Yes. I was a bike messenger for a year before I did this. I did it for a year. I loved it. Then I got hit by a car. And that took me out, shattered my hand, tore my ligament into my hand, and I was out. There was no way I was gonna do it again. So I spent some time thinking, doing, trying to figure out what I was gonna do. And it was probably a year after that I was tired, and I said, “You know what? I need to do something.”
My brother used to hang out with a group of artists and I would go there and hang out with them. But I noticed that they needed a place to hang out. It was always a restaurant. Restaurants are never cool with you just ordering a cup of coffee. I’m sorry, but they’re not. I’m gonna sit here with a cup of coffee in my book and hang out for a couple hours. Nah, it’s never been that way. So I told my brother one day, “You know what? A coffee shop would be really cool.” And he’s like, “Yeah, you know what? That’d be really a good idea.”
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: And I’ve also read that you were inspired by coffee shops in Monterey, Mexico.
Eleazar Delgado: Yes.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: Can you paint us a picture of one of those cafes, if you remember? I’d love for you to share a story of that inspiration and then how that led you to open up this spot here in Pilsen, Chicago.
Eleazar Delgado: We used to visit Monterey all the time when we were kids, and I went back when I was 17 years old. And I started hanging out with my cousins, and then they took me to coffee shops. All of the cafes always featured artwork. They would serve coffee, people would read a book, play chess. They were doing different things. And it’s like, “Wow, this is a cool idea.” I would go back every year, and it was always the same thing: “Let’s go to try a different one. Oh, let’s go to this one, let’s go to this one.”
It was something when I went to, and I saw this happening, and I finally got to a point where I realized when I was home. We don’t have that on the South Side of Chicago. There’s nothing like that here. For us, it was all taquerias, panerias, and fast food places. But that idea of a place to hang out didn’t exist.
So one night I was home, and I get this phone call from my brother telling me, “I got to a perfect location for you.” I’m like, “Whatcha talking about?” “The coffee shop idea.” I came over. I saw the spot. There’s a group of guys here hanging out, playing chess and other guys in the corner reading. They’re just hanging out. They laid their own artwork everywhere.
I’m like, “Oh my God, this is beautiful. This is it. This has gotta be it.” Talked to the owner, she had so many requests for dollar stores, taquerias. She turned them all down. Mind you, 1994. Pilsen is nothing what it was 30 years ago. Very traditional Mexican neighborhood. There was no Starbucks here, Dunkin’ Donuts’ our minimum. When she heard my idea of a coffee shop, she just like blew up. “Do it. The place is yours. Here’s the keys. Get to work.”
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: So now we’re in 1994, Eleazar, you painted a bit of a picture of what, of what Pilsen looked like in that moment. Tell us a bit about the Pilsen is not for sale movement that was going on at that time, if I’m not mistaken.
Eleazar Delgado: Yeah, the Pilsen Not for Sale movement started a few years after the neighborhood began to gentrify at a rapid pace. This neighborhood — because of the university, closeness to downtown — became popular after the North Side neighborhood Wicker Park and Bucktown were gentrified and became too expensive. And this became a hip Bohemian neighborhood.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: Did you feel instant welcoming from the community when you opened Cafe Jumping Bean? Was there a process of accepting this, this new concept?
Eleazar Delgado: We opened on a cold, cold night, January 3rd, 6pm. It was freezing. We opened up a full house. It was beautiful. It stood that way for about a week, and then we started twiddling our thumbs. We would watch people go by all day. And people would come in, “What are you, what are you serving?” “Coffee, pastries, bagels.” “Okay.” And close the door and leave.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: There were no molletes at that time.
Eleazar Delgado: There, no molletes at that time. So people would tell me, “Hey, where’s your conchas? Where’s your tacos? Where’s your tortas?” “No, I don’t serve that. We have sandwiches.” “Sandwiches? Que es eso? What’s that?” I’m like, “Well, this is what it is.” I would give ’em a quick breakdown and then they went, okay, bye. It stood that way for quite a while.
But what people forgot is that I’m from the area. I am Latino. I own my own business. I’m hiring from the neighborhood. I give back to the neighborhood. That’s a big thing, being part of your community, but also giving back. Our summer peaked a little bit. People started getting more intrigued. We started getting a lot of younger people, a lot of the college kids. They started doing poetry readings here. We’re attracting a crowd. We were getting a full house. So it was a process of being here and sticking it out.
I slowly watched the neighborhood change, but we changed with it. And we also were providing a service here. The artists in this neighborhood needed a place to exhibit their work. We rotated our artwork every four weeks. And from local artists in Pilsen, they would keep all their money. We will collect zero commission. We’re providing a place for people to hang out. We were providing a place where kids would come after school and do their homework and meet their parents. We were providing a safe space. We were providing a lot more than just coffee.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: What do you think got you over the hump? Word of mouth? Confianza in your product and in your space? [In Spanish] To see you all not leaving like maybe some of the other places? What do you think it was that caused that?
Eleazar Delgado: What gave me the will to keep going was, like you said, confianza in the people, because I had regulars. They were so regulars that they all had tabs. So at the end of the month I’d be like, “Hey guys, it’s time to pay.” And that helped me. It was like, okay, this is helping me pay that rent at the end of the month.
The families on the weekends would come with the kids. They would want to come to this place, and, yeah, family of four can come and eat here and not break the bank. I don’t need to charge $9 for a latte. I want you to be able to come every day and buy your latte here. So you know what, we’re gonna make sure it’s a reasonable price. My accountant thinks I’m nuts. I wasn’t gonna be rich off this place. But I was like, I tell my family I was happy.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: You were part of true community, and that’s what so many of us seek. I’m curious: the 30 years of your journey with Cafe Jumping Bean, what are some of these special moments that you witnessed or were a part of that stay with you in the corazon?
Eleazar Delgado: I had this one kid years ago. He came in here, he was a sixth grader. And he just looked at the menu. He said, “I want to try everything on your menu.” I said, “What?” “Yeah, I’m gonna come in and try everything on your menu. I want to start with that.” The first thing was espresso. And I’m like, “No, you don’t wanna try that.”
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: Yeah. But he was like you having coffee at eight years old, Eleazar.
Eleazar Delgado: He is like, “Yeah, I wanna try that.” I said, “Okay.” I gave it to him. He didn’t like it. I said, “Here, put a little milk and sugar in it.” He liked it. The next day, cappuccino. The other time he came back, lattes. I saw this kid graduate eighth grade. I saw him go through high school. I saw him go through college. Then he came back. I saw him with his girlfriend. Years later they disappeared, and they came back. They were married, and they had kids and I’m like, “Wow, this is something.”
I had employees that started when they were 15 years old. And I’d see them graduate high school, graduate college, have their own families, have their own business. It’s something to see all that. I’ve seen people come here and take photos from their wedding because “This is where we met. This is where our first date was,” and all this stuff happening, I’m here. I’m part of this community here.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: It’s just so amazing to hear these stories. I wanted to jump to another subject. Chicago is known to be a foodie town, and this area is the epicenter of good Mexican food, Pilsen here in Chicago. One of the most popular shows right now is The Bear, a series about opening a restaurant in Chicago. If you had to do your own version of El Oso about Cafe Jumping Bean or starting a Mexican run restaurant in Pilsen, what would be important for you to include?
Eleazar Delgado: My biggest thing would be my employees. Yeah. They’re the backbone of this place. I mean, I can’t tell you how much I’ve relied on my staff over the years. Being here 30 years, I have employees who have probably 20 years, 20- some, I’ve got two that [have] 20 years with me, a 15 year and 18 year. This is their home. So that’s what was important to me. But working side by side with your employees is the ultimate thing.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: As I’m here talking to Eleazar, his eyes are watering as he is talking about how much he truly cares about his employees and, and the staff here. He means every single word that he’s saying. And I’m, I’m very touched to see that, Eleazar. I hope we can… [fade under]
Obviously I didn’t just come to Cafe Jumping Bean to talk with Delgado. I also came here to eat. The first thing I tried was one of the cafe’s most popular drinks. Eleazar recommended that I try the choco espresso, mixed with Mexican chocolates.
Mmm. Warm, smooth, buttery cinnamon-y, chocolatey mocha-y. And the perfect kick for this morning. And to go with my choco espresso, I tried one of the cafe’s signature breakfasts, a mollete.
Wow, wow, it’s so good. It is light and airy and crisp and seasoned. And it’s not very greasy, which for a breakfast at 8am — I’m all for a big breakfast, but I was a little worried it might be heavy. But it is light and perfect.
Eleazar Delgado: Well, thank you. Fifteen years ago, I was in a cafe in Mexico City, and I saw this in molletes, in Mexico. Black beans, cheese, a side of pico de gallo. I tried it. I was like, “Oh my Lord, this is so good.” And it serves so many people. So I brought the idea over it and it was a huge success. We started adding aquacate to it. People have made it their own. They do diced ham. Then we brought on the vegan chorizo.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: Oh my gosh. The food is 10 out of 10, Eleazar. 10 out of 10. Clearly your life’s work has been much more than feeding the people of Pilsen. You’ve created a space for connection and community building like we’ve been talking about the entire conversation. How have the business and the people you serve changed you?
Eleazar Delgado: I was always very quiet. Very quiet. And I learned a lot from this community just by walking down the street to the bank, saying hello to people. That feeling of community in the morning, it’s beautiful. The door was always open here for everyone. That feeling of seeing somebody every day and knowing what they want is great. My Spanish has always been good, and my Spanish has jumped to another level because we still have, as much as Pilsen has changed, we still have that large Mexican community that comes in here.
So I make it a point that when I hire, that you need to know some Spanish or willing to learn it because I still have the paletero who comes in and wants a cup of coffee. And I don’t want him to come in and say, “quiero…” and the person to say “What?” So I make sure my employees know there has to be some degree of Spanish in your vocabulary. I don’t care what it is. Or you need to be willing to learn it.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: What advice would you give to young Latino entrepreneurs who are trying to follow in your footsteps, Eleazar?
Eleazar Delgado: If you believe in something and really believe in it, don’t give up. It took me five, six years. And people told me [to] call it quits: “You’re not making any money. You need to move on.” So it’s exciting that, you know what, if you believe in something, do it, do it a hundred percent — not 80%, not 99%. Give it a hundred percent. Be there. Know your business. Don’t just sit down and move your finger and tell people where to go. Be part of it. Work side by side with people. You’re not gonna do it every day. But you need to make sure they know that you’re invested in debt in your business as much as they are.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: When we come back from the break, we’re gonna meet two of those young Latino entrepreneurs who are giving it a hundred percent just a few blocks from where Cafe Jumping Bean is.
Salima Hamirani: I am just jumping in to remind you that you’re listening to Making Contact. If you like today’s show and want more information, or if you’d like to leave us a comment, visit us at our new website, focmedia.org. And now back to the show.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: If you walk eight minutes east from Cafe Jumping Bean, you’ll come across a restaurant that’s not as old as Delgado’s beloved cafe. But like Jumping Bean, it’s a restaurant that aims to find a balance between the neighborhood’s Mexican identity, along with American staples. And it’s all there in the restaurant’s name: Pochos. We will get more into the significance of that word shortly. In the meantime, know that it’s the brainchild of Miguel Hernandez and Irene Acosta. But first, I was hungry.
Okay, Pulso fam, I am now here at Pochos, back in Pilsen. And I am about to have a delicious lunch. When I called to ask Miguel, the owner of the restaurant, what I should order, he told me I should get shakshuka, which actually happens to be one of my favorite meals ever.
Oh my gosh. My mouth is watering. I literally can’t tell you all how excited I’m about this bite I’m about to have. Okay, here I go: Such rich flavors. The chicken was an excellent addition. It doesn’t usually come with chicken, this dish. But wow, it’s so good. It is creamy. I can see some chile in here. My eggs are running over the pepper and tomato sauce, if you can imagine that. And now I’m about to take this big chunk of crusty bread, dip it in and have another bite.
I sat down with the two owners to talk about how their identity shows up in everything from how the restaurant looks, to what the customers eat, and the ways all business owners should embrace what makes their communities unique.
Hi, Irene and Miguel. Our first question for all of our guests is, what is the last thing you told someone in confianza?
Miguel Hernandez: That I have a lot of trauma.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: Ooh, that’s deep.
Irene Acosta: I was thinking about our green salsa recipe.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: Are you gonna tell us in confianza what that recipe is, Irene?
Irene Acosta: No, precisely. The conversation was about how I’m not going to disclose that recipe.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: I love it. I love it. I love it. Were you all picky eaters growing up at all?
Irene Acosta: No, I wasn’t. And I grew up in a household where my mom cooked every day there was something homemade. So getting things like pizza, McDonald’s, things like that were special occasions. So I grew up with a lot of Mexican home cooking.
Miguel Hernandez: I also am not a very picky eater, but growing up as a kid and watching PBS, I saw a lot of people cook on TV. So I always loved trying new ingredients and being able to ask my parents to, you know, buy new things at the grocery store and promising, you know, a meal for them.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: What about other spaces here locally in Chicago where you felt connected to community? Obviously if there’s food involved even better, but where else did you all feel at home here in the city?
Irene Acosta: I think growing up Latino in a city like Chicago. We’re fortunate to have so many family. So it was, if it was either home or my grandma’s house or my aunt’s house. And there was always food involved, right? And I think being a woman in the Latino culture, you’re always involved in the kitchen, right? So when you’re young, you’re helping out with the little things and kind of eventually grow up and get to do more and more hands-on stuff.
Miguel Hernandez: One of my tias, my tia Sheila, she was a CPS lunch lady, and she was a lady for many years. So she’d always come home with a bunch of like leftover pizza, chicken nuggets. But she was always creative, and she was always, always a very good cook. And it’s someone that I kind of look up to as being a chef and a home cook.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: And you all both identify as Mexican American. How much is that connected to Chicago as part of that identity? Are those two identities intertwined, Chicago and a Mexican American? Are they different?
Irene Acosta: Yeah, I think that it’s almost like we have our own subculture because I think that being Mexican American is one thing. But then being Mexican American in a huge major city, you’re exposed to so many different cultures and you grow up eating different foods and speaking different languages. And I think inevitably that does create a particular kind of identity, right?
Miguel Hernandez: It created a great identity because I feel like in Chicago you can find some of the best Mexican ingredients, whether they’re imported or made here. I think our tortilla game is super strong. And I can’t really pinpoint another area that has the variety and the quality of tortillas that we have here in Chicago.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: So, fighting words. I love it. Let’s get into the restaurant. Tell us about the name. What does the word pocho mean for those who don’t know?
Irene Acosta: It used to be a derogatory term to say you’re maybe someone that left Mexico and really Americanized, or you’re the sons and daughters of someone from Mexico that doesn’t really understand Mexican culture. But I think more and more there’s us that identify like pochos and don’t see it as a bad thing. We just see it as something that’s different, right? We grew up on this side of the border. We have love for our roots and where our parents came from, but we certainly identify as American as well.
Miguel Hernandez: When you grew up Mexican American here and you travel to Mexico, you’re not Mexican enough, right? You can’t pronounce the words properly, so you get made fun of. And then here in America, you’re not American enough sometimes, so you can find yourself kind of in that middle ground. But we definitely want to embrace that and be able to show that we have more than just one culture. We have two big cultures.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: You both come from culinary backgrounds and walk the Pulso fam through your journey in the culinary world and then to opening the restaurant.
Irene Acosta: I was always more of a home cook, but I did start working in the food kind of industry right out of college. My first job ever was at a like sandwich shop. Then I worked at the cafeterias in college and kind of eventually made my way into restaurant world. I hosted. I served. So I got to do a little bit of different things in the restaurant industry, work in different concepts from fast casual to fine dining.
And pretty early on I gauged, you know what? I really wanna open my own restaurant one day. So I think I took advantage of a lot of the opportunities that were presented kind of with a very clear focus of, I’m gonna come in, I’m gonna see what works, why does it work? When I don’t understand something, I’m gonna ask questions. I’m always gonna learn as much as I can, take that knowledge with me.
Miguel Hernandez: I started super young, and I think 14 years old, still in high school, working restaurants. And I’ve done everything from fine dining, fast casual. I’ve cooked, I’ve been a busser, runner, server. I’ve done it all and I just have this huge appreciation for the whole culture that is a restaurant culture, especially here in Chicago.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: We already talked about Chicago being a huge foodie town and one of the most popular shows right now is The Bear. Have you all seen it, know about it?
Miguel Hernandez: Yes.
Irene Acosta: Yes.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: If you had to do your own version of El Oso, about Pochos or starting a Mexican run restaurant in Pilsen, what would be important for you to include?
Miguel Hernandez: All the sacrifice and hours and blood, sweat, and tears it takes to open up a restaurant, especially through a pandemic, to really just strive and stay open without any assistance from the government.
Irene Acosta: I would make sure we cover how much fun it is. I swear like the funniest people work in restaurants. It’s not like we interview with that in mind, but it just always works out for us. And all the jokes behind the scenes that take place that make it worth all the hard work. I would for sure show that.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: I love that. So obviously this is a podcast. So we wanna paint a picture of taste sounds and smells for our audience. I really want our audience to be able to imagine the place that we’re sitting in right now. Can you walk us through, maybe even as literally as you can, the decor of the place, what it here has cultural significance, details that you want the audience to know.
Miguel Hernandez: I think one of the big pieces that I really enjoy and really kind of think Pocho is the mural when you first walk in, it’s a mural that has a lot of different forms of cacti that you find in Mexico. But then right underneath that is this calligraphy from this amazing graffiti artist from Chicago named Tubbs.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón: I wanted to ask you all the deeper meaning of Pochos. Obviously you’re here to serve delicious brunch food, but you’re more than that. Any restaurant is more than that. It’s a community space. It’s a gathering space. You’ve changed the community for sure by being here and everything you’ve contributed. But now I’m curious about how has the community changed you all?
Irene Acosta: Oh man, that’s a really loaded question. A lot has happened in the last five years. We were so fortunate to find a home in Pilsen because it’s a neighborhood of pochos. I mean, it’s been a predominantly Latino Mexican community since the eighties. We kind of landed in like the perfect neighborhood, given what we represent and continuing to find so many customers that identify also as pochos is just kind of reinforces that what we’re doing is correct and that we can offer a home for, you know, an ever growing group of pochos.
That’s it for this week. Thanks for joining me, Pulso Fam. We’ll be back soon, In Confianza.
Lucy Kang: That was the voice of Liz Rebecca Alarcón in a story from the podcast In Confianza, with Pulso. To find out more including where you can hear the full story, head over to our website at focmedia.org. And that does it for today’s show. I’m Lucy Kang. Thanks for tuning in to Making Contact.
