CHEF NELIA CRUZ DEBUTS HER OWN CONCEPT

WORDS BY NATHAN MATTISE

Nelia Cruz by Eugenio De Santiago

Whether or not she realized it, Nelia Cruz has spent her entire life building Pepita’s Cafe & Bar, the all-day spot she recently opened in Rollingwood. Born in Mexico, Cruz moved to Austin when she was eight. She started working in restaurants at 14, hosting at various local chains. Ever since, she’s been a bonafide Austin restaurant lifer, doing a bit of everything at several local Tex-Mex institutions such as Tres Amigos, Maudie’s and Cisco’s most recently.

“I started as a host but I’ve managed and done pretty much every position in the industry either by accident or fate. If you’re the manager or a general manager and employees quit, you end up jumping into the kitchen to learn the grill or learn to batch,” Cruz says. “It’s evolved into a career, but luckily every single position I’ve held, I’ve loved — from busing to serving to being a bartender. And if you love something, you tend to excel at it because you want to learn everything you can about it. So I went to the culinary school of life, and you can’t get any better experience than that.”

Walking into Pepita’s and reading the menu is like entering Cruz’s mind. She never set out to open her own restaurant, but when she came across the opportunity she had a vision ready: a place that opens daily, serves all day migas and martinis, and focuses on delicious Mexican-American dishes built from fresh ingredients. Basically, Cruz wanted to build the kind of restaurant she loves eating at.

“I’ve always had recipes from my family that are so good. I love American cuisine and Mexican cuisine, so I wanted to incorporate those and basically create my own cravings menu,” Cruz says. “So this is everything that I’ve always wanted at a restaurant — ‘Today, I want avocado toast, but I also want tacos and a latte.’ Well, I’m sure someone else wants that, too. And in these first three months, we’ve gotten such a warm welcome from the neighborhood. Everyone seems thrilled because it’s not something that’s been here.”

The food at Pepita’s has evolved from Cruz’s experiences, passions and preferences. Her pozole verde, for instance, is served the way she’s always liked it — cilantro, onions, cabbage and a drizzle of sour cream on top. The chilaquiles are inspired directly by a version Cruz had while traveling in Mexico in recent years. The mixes and purees powering her cocktail and mocktail menu are made in house, perfected from Cruz’s time as a bartender. And her tacos are elevated by tips and tricks learned throughout her time in the Austin restaurant scene.

Nelia Cruz by Eugenio De Santiago

“Another dish from my travels in Mexico — why do the street tacos there taste so good? I tried again and again to recreate the recipe, and I think it’s really the mini tortillas, and those are all about the ingredients,” Cruz says. “These aren’t homemade, but luckily I’ve done research through years of working in restaurants. I know which tortillas are better than which. So I work with El Milagro, and they only make these yellow corn tortillas on certain days — non-GMO, as clean as you can get.”

“We also go through so many shrimp tacos, and I’ve changed those from my time in restaurants, too,” Cruz continues. “Too often the shrimp is just sauteed on the grill and there’s not enough flavor. So we do a nice marinade, and they sit awhile before they go on the grill. That lets the flavors come out, so all you need from there is a little chipotle aioli, some cabbage, some cilantro and pickled onions. All those flavors combine for an excellent taco.”

Cruz’s new restaurant isn’t the first time she’s had to lead staff through the grind of opening, and she even previously had a chance to test run the menu concepts that would become Pepita’s. About two years ago, after Cruz helped navigate an opening for another restaurant group, she had the opportunity to run a nameless, pop-up cafe inside Marigold Market off Southwest Parkway. Though she says the contract was underwhelming, the chance to create her own concept and operate her own restaurant for an entire year was a valuable learning experience in retrospect (plus, she recalls the cafe earning several regulars). So as she’s done with a ll her restaurant experiences, Cruz now applies some of these lessons at Pepita’s.

Photo by Ome Creative House

“Every experience I’ve had has built to where I want to be,” Cruz says. “If you asked me ten years back, ‘Do you want to open a restaurant?’ I mean, I think I’ve been asked that question before and said, ‘That’s the dumbest thing you could want.’ Well, here I am doing the dumbest thing. But you do it for the love of the food. There’s that saying, ‘If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.’ I’m living that.”

About the Contributor

Nathan Mattise (@nathanmattise) is always working to perfect his sourdough bagels. He also enjoys bocce, amaro, road trips, and a good playlist.