Five years ago, I met Vanessa in a kitchen where I was the Executive Chef, and she was the Pastry Chef. After many hours working together in a big corporate hotel kitchen, we found love.
Today we are married!
COVID arrived with all its challenges, and we lost our job. We started to think about what we wanted to do. We went through many different concepts until we decided on the Mexican concept. Many of my friends encouraged us to pursue it, telling us we could add our spin to things. Although my wife and I were born in Venezuela, I briefly lived in Mexico when I was younger. I studied culinary in Mexico, and the culture always stayed with me.
We chose the name “Machine Gun” (Machine Gon), so it would sound good in English and Spanish, and the logo is our Bull Terrier.
Working on our own has been very different from the corporate restaurant world. Back in the old kitchen, we had around 25 cooks working with us. The good part is that we get to return to the kitchen and do everything with our hands, reconnecting differently with the kitchen.
In our new space, we had to learn to work together as a team since it’s just us 24/7. In the kitchen, we leave the relationship at the door and become teammates.
Up to this point, the concept has worked well for us. Ideally, we’d love to continue growing and expand the business into a complete Mexican restaurant.