Summary
The underground delivery service got fired up late last fall after Hechanova, 31, and Lawrence, 22, had stirred the idea around while cooking at Burlington's Iron Wolf restaurant. "It wasn't a really crazy notion," says [Chris Hechanova]. He moved to Vermont from Chicago in 2002 to study at the New England Culinary Institute (NECI), and started looking for good Mexican food in the area. "In Chicago, there are amazing Mexican dives, a dime a dozen, as many as blues joints," he says. "Around here -- and I know this may sound arrogant -- there was nothing even close."
"I'm kind of a goofball, and [Andrew Lawrence]'s kind of a goofball. He's got a car, and I've got the background and I love cooking," says Hechanova. "So we started to get creative about doing something with zero capital."After paying the rent, Hechanova and Lawrence tuck away the rest of their money for the business' future. But they admit that they're looking around for a place cool enough for Big Chile Republic. "Before, it was like, 'Oh, we made $100, let's go out and drink!'" says Hechanova. "But now we're more responsible. We're a real entity. This is not a joke."See the full content of this document
Extract
Salsa Survivors; What's Cooking at Big Chile Republic?
Last November strange flyers began to appear around Burlington. They were swooshed with a chile pepper and stapled to corkboards on Church Street bars, slipped under windshield wipers, and looped over doorknobs with a rubber band. "Sunday menu no. 1," read the sheets of paper. "Minimum of 2 items per order please/delivering every hour 11 to 5pm." The business was called, mysteriously, Big Chile Republic. No address, just a phone numb...
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