Barrio Cafe, a special place for Phoenix’s Hispanic and LGBTQ communities
Joe Biden started to raise his cup then stopped and asked, “Wait, what is this I’m drinking?”
“Horchata, sir.”
Biden and Kamala Harris visited Phoenix’s Barrio Cafe during a campaign stop Oct. 8 — a visit that cafe owner Silvana Salcido Esparza said was supposed to last no more than five minutes and a quick agua fresca. Instead, the pair spent 45 minutes at the cafe, standing in a socially distanced, masked circle inside the restaurant to talk to staff about health care, small businesses and immigration issues. Then they perused the works of local Hispanic and Native American artists that adorn the walls and alleyways in and around the cafe. Photos from the visit appeared on Biden’s Flickr page.
Salcido Esparza — a member of the Arizona chapter of Biden’s Latino Leadership Committee, which also includes Congressmen Raul Grijalva and Ruben Gallego — has appeared in two bilingual advertisements for the Biden-Harris campaign that have aired in Arizona, “No Escucha” and “Si Se Puede, Hope Again.” Her endorsement is important because Esparza is an influential and valued member of the community, especially Phoenix’s Hispanic and LGBTQ communities.
She’s known as La Jefa Chingona (“the bad ass woman boss”), filling the roles of restaurateur, activist and philanthropist. In the past, she has received death threats for her outspokenness on her lesbian identity and her support for immigrant rights, but she continues to speak out against inequality and do charitable work in the Central Phoenix area, even as she battles an incurable inflammatory disease without health insurance and tries to keep her restaurant open amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Tohono O'odham artist Thomas “Breeze” Marcus described her as “a giant supporter of the arts,” as she has commissioned many murals and collected original canvas works. “Most importantly, Silvana sees far past the monetary value, and surrounds herself with the cultural value and enrichment that art brings to our daily existence,” he said. “It is something you cannot put a price on, and we are extremely grateful to have that human interaction and shared experience with her.”
Phoenix Home & Garden magazine called Salcido Esparza “a trailblazer in terms of Mexican cuisine, civil rights, art and social service.” She’s a member of the Arizona Culinary Hall of Fame, an eight-time James Beard Award nominee and now a prominent part of the Biden-Harris effort to mobilize Latin voters.
Trailblazing is in Salcido Esparza’s blood. “I come from 800 years of baking and culinary excellence. My people were pioneers,” she said. “If you go to Chihuahua and study feminism, you’re going to learn about my great-aunt eight generations ago. Her name was Juana de Cobos.”
Juana de Cobos “earned a reputation among the town’s prosperous male bakers for being outspoken and often uncooperative and for encouraging other women to follow her example,” according to “Governance and Society in Colonial Mexico,” published by Stanford University Press.
Juana de Cobos paid to bring the first doctor from Mexico City to Chihuahua. She also bought and freed slaves, took in an orphaned child and set up a rescue shelter for women.
“And we’re talking about the 1700s, during colonial times, when you didn’t have permission to cross the street by yourself,” Salcido Esparza said. “That’s where I come from. And the more I learn about the people who share my DNA and what they have done, the more I feel like I’m on the right path, and this is exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
Salcido Esparza said she also takes after her father, who taught her to be charitable. Whenever they visited Mexico from Merced, California, where Salcido Esparza was born and raised, her father would fill her pocket with change and instruct her to give it to an elderly person or a child. “He taught me to go to any degree to be of service to my fellow man,” she said.
Food has always been a huge part of her life. She grew up in the family bakery. “I’m American by birth, not by upbringing. I didn’t eat barbecue until I was 19 years old. I didn’t have pizza until I was 10,” Salcido Esparza said. “And I cried the first time I had some ugly ass, nasty pizza. I remember crying and asking my parents, ‘Why have I never had this before?’ My heart belongs to Mexican food, but my stomach always wants Italian.”
In 1995, Salicido Esparza moved to Arizona and trained at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Scottsdale. In 2002, she opened Barrio Cafe on 16th Street in Central Phoenix. Every local publication, from Phoenix New Times to the Arizona Republic, has named Barrio Cafe the best Mexican restaurant, and national accolades weren’t far behind. The Food Network’s Guy Fieri fell in love with the almond sauce in the chiles en nogada; Zagat proclaimed that Salcido Esparza “works magic”; and USA Today praised her menu’s “lush, richly layered flavors.”
In 2020, Salcido Esparza received her eighth James Beard Award nomination. She agreed to participate in a panel at an Arizona event with James Beard but found out at the last minute she was a scheduled lecturer. Her impromptu speech thanked Beard “for finally recognizing Arizona.” She pointed out that everyone in attendance was white and blonde with the exception of two black people and one other Chicana. “I’ll be the token dyke,” she said.
“James Beard, you’re missing the mark, dude,” Salcido Esparza said. “You can’t tell me there’s no politics in food. Shall we start with the unfair treatment of the people who harvest plants? The whole spectrum — from the kitchen farms to the pig farms to the slaughterhouses to the canning, you name it — it’s always people of color in the service of food. So, don’t tell me there’s no politics and racism in food, because there is.”
Just before the pandemic, Salcido Esparza had three restaurants in Phoenix — Barrio Cafe, Barrio Gran Reserva and Barrio Avion at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Only Barrio Cafe remains. She stopped paying for health insurance to save money and said she’s treating her inflammatory disease, sarcoidosis, with natural medicine. Despite having good credit and a strong business background, she had to get a 30-year private loan because no bank would talk to her.
“Guys who own all the chains get the credit lines and become culture vultures and engage in corporate cultural appropriation. If you put it any other way, it would be wrong,” Salcido Esparza said.
“I spoke to Vice President Biden and he understood exactly what I’m talking about,” she said. “And he said, ‘The problem is, you’re the one with the talent, and they’re the ones with the credit line. We’re going to change that. We’re going to set up programs and grants and loans so you can go out and grow your business.’”
For Salcido Esparza, growth is not just about business, but about nourishing community. At the onset of the pandemic in April, after she shuttered her other restaurants, Salcido Esparza turned Barrio Cafe into a food truck serving free meals to front-line workers and community members.
“The best experience has been the community kitchen and the opportunity to feed front-line workers,” she said. “That’s an opportunity to shine a light on our culture and how hospitable we are, and that we’re not how we are erroneously seen out there. Not only the food, but the people and the culture. I think we change perception daily, one plate at a time.”
“The hardest thing has been the misunderstandings,” she continued. “I get a lot of hate mail. I have for the last 10 years … but it’s gonna go away. I’ve never been hung like they keep telling me they’re going to hang me. I’ve never been killed like I’ve been told. I’ve been put on boycott lists. It just indicates to me that I’m doing the right thing by being vocal about the inequities and lack of equality that we suffer in this country, in this world.”
Her conversation with Biden gave her hope. “He listened to me and any suggestions. We talked about hope and aspirations. We talked about jobs,” she said. “He asked me, ‘Do you think we’re going to turn this state blue?’ And I said, ‘Well, sir, it’s a very bright purple right now.’ And let me tell you something about Arizona: We are mavericks.”
Salcido Esparza hopes everyone votes.
“Cesar Chavez had this beautiful sentiment when he was encouraging people to vote. He kept saying it doesn’t matter what the political system is. We don’t need a perfect political system. But we do need perfect participation. And that’s it. Perfect participation,” she said. “Joe Biden is not perfect, and he’s not going to be perfect … I just feel confident he will be bipartisan and work with the senators and the House to foster change. The world is decaying and dying. Our human spirit, our humanity, is at stake here. Not just in our country but the world.”