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He taught me wait a minute.
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There's a big world out there.
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There are far more interesting people, people that are accomplished, people that are artists and I do believe we're all artists.
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But he really gave me that dream that I was worthy, that I could learn and talk about things that people in my class weren't talking about.
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So I realized, as being exposed to my brother in the restaurant business, Hello and welcome to another edition of For the Love of Creatives podcast.
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Welcome to another edition of For the Love of Creatives podcast.
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I am your co-host, dwight, joined by our other co-host, maddox, and today we have a special guest, michael Miko Rodriguez.
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He is some Dallas restaurant royalty.
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I could not give him an introduction that would do him justice.
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So, michael, why don't you tell our listeners about yourself?
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Well, thanks for making me feel special, but and I'm honored to be on your broadcast Born and raised in Dallas, been in the business all my life, I had no choice.
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My mother was a big influence because I worked for her for many years.
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We had a restaurant and I grew up at Mia's on Lemon Avenue.
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So I knew at a very young age that this was what I was going to do and even though the holidays and seven days a week, it still intrigued me.
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When I'd go to restaurants, I'd look at lighting, I'd look at the floors, I'd look at you know, and I was 17 years old Only because this is the way I wanted to live my life.
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I wanted to be in a restaurant and my dream was to have only one restaurant.
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That would have sufficed, for sure.
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Well, you certainly surpassed that in spades.
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And there's a lot I left in between, but I'm sure we'll get around to some of that.
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Yeah, it sounds like it kind of took on a life of its own, didn't it?
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You know what it did create?
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My mother did create a restaurateur and it was.
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Maybe I didn't recognize it at the time but even today, you know, I hear my mother's voice inside my head.
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So a privilege and tough, because my mother was a very believed in being an old school, a dictator, a tyrant when it those times came.
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But we were working, my mother had a busy restaurant and we're working as a family, which is the highs are high, the lows are low.
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But when I dream restaurants, I dream that restaurant.
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What year did your mom open that restaurant?
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1980.
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1980.
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And for those that don't know, it's a very prominent restaurant in Dallas.
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It still exists.
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It moved here a couple of years.
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No, it's been more than that, probably been five or six years.
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Now it moved to a new location.
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Is it still part of your family?
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Yes, my sister, my mother, my mother passed, my dad had passed several years ago.
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She inherited the restaurant and they actually moved from one side of Chipotle to the other side of Chipotle, which was fortunate for them because they're they kept their client, they kept their customer.
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They have a very loyal customer.
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They kept their customer, they have a very loyal customer.
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And when you walk into the restaurant it feels like Mamma Mia.
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Mamma Mia had a distinct vibe and a distinct way of doing things, but she was consistent.
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And to be successful in this business you've got to be consistent not just with the food but with the process and the behaviors and representing the brand.
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So that restaurant's now 80, no 45 years old, Unbelievable and still going strong.
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So how old were you when you started helping out in the restaurant?
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Oh, I was five.
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My parents worked for Chico.
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It was 1962.
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And well, every now and then you might see a car on Sunday in Dallas, maybe not.
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So things were a lot different.
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But I would go to work.
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My dad would pay me a dollar an hour and I'd work three hours.
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So that was.
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I was in a good place, I felt.
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I felt I felt at peace believe it or not in a restaurant.
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It felt very comfortable for me and, of course, my parents.
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They worked morning, noon and night and even for the other company.
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So El Chico, who they worked for, fabulous company in the 60s really was a blueprint for Mi Cocina and it was owned by the Cuellar family.
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But the Cuellar family loved my mom and dad because they were good for the bottom line and my parents were turnaround artists.
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They'd come in, put a little pixie dust in a restaurant that wasn't operating well and they would turn it around.
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And that's a special thing because it's hard to have that you.
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You know you're at the bottom of the you and it's hard to get up again.
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But resilience and perseverance and never stop doubting.
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They never really thought that they were going to fail.
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Because one guest at a time if you make the children, they'll bring the parents of time.
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If you keep, if you make the children, they'll bring the parents.
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And, um, like I said, you know the commitment and my parents were together every day for 40 years and even that is an accomplishment, but, um, it is.
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My mother was definitely the boss.
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My dad, well, he just surrendered Because when they got successful, they started traveling a little bit and I would always stay at the restaurant.
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So, and my dad, you know, it was a 12-table restaurant, 24-table restaurant that was packed all the time and, of course, dallas had fewer Mexican restaurants and they just, well, they loved their customers and I think that was really what kept them going.
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There's so many stories that I haven't heard, and some I've been hearing lately, that I had no idea.
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And it's special, and it's special, it's special.
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I had a gentleman that, let me know, he was in the radio business and he was producing films and he said to me you know I'm going to tell you something In the 80s I was going through a very, very sad divorce and so I would go to Mia's, I'd be by myself and your mother would always soothe me and we would talk and share.
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And I just want you to know that I'm very grateful that I had her in my life and I had no idea, no idea.
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So those are the special things that either are said or unsaid.
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But my mother never.
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She never said well, we talked about this or we talked.
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She kept it private, which you know.
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It's easy to share that, but she felt like that was a moment that she had and she had a lot of respect for the gentleman.
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But that was nice to hear.
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You know, miko, there are more stories like that than you can begin to imagine that you will never hear, because you've already said.
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That's who she was, and he wasn't the only one she did that with, for sure, oh no.
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So you spoke.
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Oh, go ahead, I'm sorry.
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Well, she did it with me because she planted a seed and you know, I have two people in my life really that said to me Miko, you're going to make it, and that was my mother and Carolyn, my wife, father, who I was very close to, and they never gave up.
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They always said you're going to be fine, you're going to have.
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All I wanted was one restaurant, and when I got to be 30, I got my twenties out of the way.
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I'd gotten control of my alcohol and cocaine addiction and I've had addiction probably since the age of 11, when I ate two bags of Chips, ahoy cookies, and so I knew that something wasn't quite correct.
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But I've had.
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Well, I'm bipolar, I'm pretty sure I'm ADD, I'm sure I don't know what else, but I know that, above all, I'm a good man and I feel good about this, that I feel comfortable in my skin.
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In my 20s, the drinking and the drugging and working in a restaurant kind of went hand in hand to a lot of people.
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The drugging and working in a restaurant kind of went hand in hand to a lot of people, and so, but I always made it to work and it's because I wanted to be there and I didn't want to miss anything and it was a busy restaurant.
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I mean, whatever I made, I lived like if I had a different lifestyle because of Mamma Mia.
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So you know, that was nice, but we were, you know, very moderate people.
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We didn't have anything extravagant or anything, but we had the commitment to the business and our guests and it was basically, it was our lives.
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It really was our lives.
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If I dream it has, well, let's say this I never had.
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If it's a backyard barbecue, not really.
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If it's a family vacation, not many, but you know.
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But when you celebrate everything at a restaurant, then birthdays or whatever then you never get to be at home.
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My mother for 10 years she worked seven days a week.
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As I got older and went through the experience of Mia's, I realized that that's the choice she made, because she felt safe, secure and she didn't have to deal with everything except things that she could accomplish.
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She could run a restaurant.
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But I realized that it was difficult sometimes for her, you know, to be I don't want to say normal, but to be more conventional, and I found myself duplicating a lot of that.
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And so it affected me because she was probably the most influential, because she was probably the most influential.
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And when I left Mia's, my brother says that I changed history.
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I walked out of Mia's because my mother was telling me a certain way to live and I finally said, well, it's to myself, it's time for me to get out of mama's skirt.
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And I started walking down Lemon Avenue and my brother, paul, who's very creative and artistic, my big business influence he ran outside and he says Miko, don't leave.
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And he said to me you're going to change history.
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And I had no idea that Mikosina was going to happen.
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I had no idea.
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Like I said, I got to when we opened Mikosina.
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It was basically Mia's North, but my cousin and I had contributed a lot.
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My cousin, ernest, contributed a lot to the menu of the restaurant of Mia's, so I literally opened up Mia's North.
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So it was quite controversial.
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My mother never gave up connecting with me, but my dad didn't.
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We didn't speak for a couple of years and I didn't go back to Mia's for nine years.
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So yeah, it took a toll on my relationship with with my family.
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But even with my, my family, caroline and Chris, my son Chris we all got married the same day because she had Chris from a previous marriage and they were willing to sacrifice not ever seeing me because literally I kind of well, I made some choices my mother made and that was almost truly sad.
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Just sad for me, because there was a time when I felt like like my restaurant came first and a regret, yeah, a growing experience and appreciation that I've gotten to this moment.
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Right now I'm very grateful and have a lot of gratitude, because I have taken it to the edge a few times and it took a long time to get here.
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You know, your energy tells me that's true that you're in a very good place.
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The day I met you, I immediately recognized a man with great wisdom and great humility.
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Well, my mother said always be humble.
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And I never.
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Really.
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A lot of people define that word differently and they think some people might think it's submissive or some people might think that it's the best thing they like about themselves, it's the best thing they like about themselves.
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And she also said that I would ask her.
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I said Mama, what do you want for your birthday?
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And she would say just give me peace of mind.
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And my experience tells me that all our life we struggle looking for peace and serenity, because you're either off to the races, creating a life for your family, working, occupied, and, you know, you surrender a lot of those things that maybe you wish you had, and so you're living your life really kind of through your guest.
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Because as a server I realized that listening was important and when people would talk about trips and travel and meals and fashion and it's not like I intentionally overheard, although sometimes it was hard not to but I didn't get that interaction at that level.
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You know we're families, that's not what we did.
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So I always appreciated that.
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I always appreciated to see people share a meal and actually talk about the day, talk about the weekend, talk about the trips and so.
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But it really made me curious and really broadened.
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I say, you know, people say, well, where'd you get your education?
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I say in the dining rooms, and that's really what it was, working with my co-workers and then listening in the dining room.
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Miko, can I offer a different perspective?
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Yes, please, and it's just a possibility.
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You know your life better than anybody, but you have made references several times to guests.
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But your story tells me that the way you listened to these people, the way you took interest in their lives, that they were not guests, they were your family.
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They literally were your family, and I get that.
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I was a career hairdresser for 40 years and my clients became my family.
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Now it may not have been the family that you chose and a wife and then had kids, but I suspect part of the reason that your mother spent as much time at the restaurant as she did was because that was where she felt the most loved and where you probably felt the most loved because you had nurtured those relationships to the degree that they were no longer guests.
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Yeah, and you went through their highs and their lows and you felt it.
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You know you're trying to be familiar, not too familial, but it's hard, especially when they look at you as an extension of the family or a family friend, because I'm, you know, essentially an important thing, serving something that's substance, that people need to nourish, and to me it's a very intimate thing.
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But you had an element you and your mom both of nourishing that had nothing to do with food.
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Well, it was a little self-serving because we were I think we were medicating.
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You know, listening and seeing other people's lives, that well, we're not like that but we're happy, but maybe, maybe we could be like that someday.
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And you know, every family has, of course, the ordeals and the struggles.
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But that was my point of reference and so even when we got home we would talk about the Joneses or the Richards and how idyllic.
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Their life felt that you perceived, and they were interesting.
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And I was fortunate enough that we were surrounded by interesting people and people that were willing to share some wisdom.
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And I paid attention, I did do that, and sometimes you need to expand your wardrobe of knowledge and of sharing.
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My brother, paul, was probably the biggest influence as far as culture.
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The first time I heard the word avant-garde, I'm like what does that mean?
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And so my brother, 18 18 traveled to europe by himself and I didn't understand that and I felt fear for him, um, or not fear, but uh, scared that something could happen to him.
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I was 13 and he was, and five or six years is a huge difference.
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When he's 24, you're 18.
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And so there are huge differences, although we became really brothers and very close.
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In the end we were estranged because he passed, but he was such a big influence.
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He taught me wait a minute, there's a big world out there.
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There are far more interesting people, people that are accomplished, people that are artists, and I do believe we're all artists.
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He really gave me that dream that I was worthy that I could learn and talk about things that people in my class weren't talking about.
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So I realized, as being exposed to my brother in the restaurant business, the idea that I was maybe a little bit more mature, maybe I was a little bit more worldly, even though I'd never traveled.
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But I lived my life and through my guests and my brother, he always said to me because you know he had well, he never really.
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He loved beautiful people and beauty to him, whether it's male or female, was something from the inside and something from the outside.
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And whenever I never asked him a question about his sexuality, but it influenced me in a way that I would hear things from other people and, of course, I was a little bit confused.
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Young, I didn't know, we shared the same bedroom.
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I didn't know why they're making fun of my brother, but I learned how to deal with it and it was more or less my brother expanded.
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He goes Mika, I love beautiful people and I still hear those words and he did.
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And he was a hairdresser for many, many years and, like you say, interesting guests and interesting clients, so I got to hear about them.
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Plus I got a good deal on haircuts, but a big influence in my life, that you mentioned how in the restaurant you grew up with your mother having seven days a week, you know for 10 years straight, you know never going outside of it, and you kind of inherited that same drive, that same tenacity.
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The restaurant became first.
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Well, I didn't know how to do it.
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So I went the first week we opened.
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Every time I said we're going to do this or let's try this, I would quickly look behind me because I was going to be overridden and my mother wasn't there.
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It was just a learned behavior of hearing her voice and, you know, you could say one could say that well, you felt like maybe you were lacking in your mother's attention or your mother's love, but she did what she knew how to do and that was life experience.
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And when I realized, after opening a couple of restaurants well, more than a couple that I didn't feel comfortable being the person she was and I had a family and the success was beyond my wildest dreams, juanita Miller walked into my first restaurant and that neighborhood had launched us and I was very, very appreciative and there was that codependency as far as well Miko's there, or the food's good or they're open late, and we were there to serve, there to serve.
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But a woman told me, a lady friend said Miko, I love you, but I don't have as much love as you need.
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So there was a certain emptiness that I was lacking, emptiness that I was lacking, and I chose to put well, food and work ahead of everything else.
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I talked about my addictions and during the 90s in 1989, 1988, I'd met, I'd known Carolyn all my life and we became very close and one day I asked her to marry me and I said why would I want this man to marry my sister?
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When I was doing drugs, I was drinking, I was, but I worked every day.
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My mother would hand that to me.
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But I needed to be a better man and so I got alcohol and drug free and I started working a program that through the years I was committed to, and some years I backtracked from not managing my personality or my behaviors, and so I decided then that I needed to be alcohol and drug free or not ask her, her, to marry me.
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But she went through this, let's say, life-changing experience with um I was um speaking earlier, juanita miller, who owned highland park village, so Potom Park's downtown, but it's also Dallas' Rodeo Drive, right and I knew then that how did we get here?
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And my mother and I always had an agreement that well, okay, it's Mia's North, that kind of went unsaid, but I don't want you to come below Lover's Lane, no, northwest Highway.
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And I said that's good, mama, because even when things got tough, she didn't forget about Carol and I were newly married and so things were tough and she was always considerate of that.
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But I went to the phone because, well, here I was looking at an opportunity that a lot of people wanted.
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I'd heard about it, but I never thought that the village would be available or available to me.
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And so I call Mama and I said this is actually, I remember, because it was my one of my first cell phones maybe, but it was one of those flip phones and I said Mama, so she knew what that meant.
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And I said Mama, she wants me for the village.
00:30:13.980 --> 00:30:34.694
And there was another long pause and the whole time I was thinking about our agreement and I had committed to it, and she said you have to do it.
00:30:34.694 --> 00:30:36.276
So here I go.
00:30:36.276 --> 00:30:39.878
By that time I referenced this.
00:30:40.878 --> 00:31:11.179
After we got busy at Harlem Park, I visited Mexico City for the first time and I went with some dear friends who had lived there and I saw glamour, style, fashion, history I'm Mexican in every color and a whole different point of view as far as design.
00:31:11.179 --> 00:31:24.477
Luis Barigon became a big influence and when we did Venturi, you could see, you know there was.
00:31:24.477 --> 00:31:27.300
You walked in and there was this curved brick wall.
00:31:27.300 --> 00:31:30.113
They called it Pepto-Bismol pink.
00:31:30.113 --> 00:31:33.125
I didn't see Pepto-Bismol pink.
00:31:33.125 --> 00:31:39.191
I thought it was graphic, it was architectural and it had a purpose.
00:31:39.191 --> 00:31:53.453
But the restaurant definitely was in a different direction and I had worked with fortunately I had worked with Zero Three, who did Baby Ruth in Dallas.
00:31:53.453 --> 00:32:00.574
It was one of my favorite restaurants design-wise and so I was very fortunate.
00:32:01.255 --> 00:32:54.974
I walked into their office and we were all the same age if I got to later, but I was sitting down and they were at an oval table I think the serenade table, because I asked that it was a beautiful table and not knowing that for the next probably 30 years we were gonna design beautiful restaurants, be a part of it, have a great experience, travel together, have those moments of sincerity, have those moments of sincerity and when maybe I need some advice and I learned a lot and I brought to them my restaurant part.
00:32:54.974 --> 00:32:57.298
So it was a very good relationship.
00:32:57.298 --> 00:33:06.692
People will say now I had an interview where somebody said what was the most important thing?
00:33:06.692 --> 00:33:20.511
That you and 03, paul and Jan were at the same table and I look at Paul and he looks at me and I said our relationships Because we were truly.
00:33:20.511 --> 00:33:22.673
I said our relationships because we were truly.
00:33:22.673 --> 00:33:25.255
We cared about each other, we cared about what we produced.
00:33:25.335 --> 00:33:26.715
Disagreements, yes.
00:33:26.715 --> 00:33:29.198
Did I learn how to surrender?
00:33:29.198 --> 00:34:03.656
Yes, but I also learned a lot about design and I was very intrigued by it and I realized that, at a point of view that was different, mexico City had heavily influenced that, because I had never traveled and I thought I saw sophistication and I saw glamor that you don't see here with glamour that you don't see here with.
00:34:03.656 --> 00:34:31.489
You know, you're either a Mexican national or you're what we call Chicano, and a Chicano is someone that more than likely has Indian in their blood and darker and we were here before Texas was Mexico or the nation of Aslan, and so we tended to be.
00:34:31.789 --> 00:34:37.257
As we assimilated into the American culture, it was half and half.
00:34:37.257 --> 00:35:11.818
You know, if, culinarily and culturally, the Mexican national felt like superior and this was the 60s, even the 70s felt superior, especially when you couldn't speak the language correctly and let's say they were educated people there was a certain kind of I don't want to say racism, but superiority.
00:35:11.818 --> 00:35:20.699
So my version of that was that my parents would take sometimes the cooks home.
00:35:20.699 --> 00:35:34.010
That was that my parents would take sometimes the cooks home, and so I related to them.
00:35:34.010 --> 00:35:59.184
But there were rancheritos, people from the farm, and being in Mexico City just changed my whole perspective and certain guests will tell me that they can see the difference and that has really, really been a privilege in my life and designing a restaurant with a point of view and representing.
00:35:59.184 --> 00:36:04.485
One of the best compliments I think I've ever received was from a guest.
00:36:04.485 --> 00:36:11.255
He said, miko, the way your restaurants are are the way I want to live.
00:36:13.358 --> 00:36:13.980
I can relate.
00:36:13.980 --> 00:36:32.641
So I've been to a couple of your the, the restaurant concepts, and I just know that the feeling that I got walking into a Mi Casina was it was a place that had a certain charm and elegance.
00:36:34.483 --> 00:36:41.753
And people cared for each other, our staff, people that didn't belong in our culture.
00:36:41.753 --> 00:36:58.215
They would get weeded out, not by management, a lot of it by staff, in a subtle way, and unfortunately there were some people that didn't want to care, and so we developed a culture that we called it la escalera the ladder.
00:36:58.215 --> 00:37:00.119
You came in with no experience.
00:37:00.119 --> 00:37:00.679
You started washing dishes.
00:37:00.679 --> 00:37:01.501
You became a buzz boy.
00:37:01.501 --> 00:37:02.083
Guess what that?
00:37:02.083 --> 00:37:03.025
We call that la escalera the ladder.
00:37:03.025 --> 00:37:04.036
You came in with no experience.
00:37:04.036 --> 00:37:04.585
You started washing dishes.
00:37:04.585 --> 00:37:05.489
You became a buzz boy.
00:37:05.489 --> 00:37:07.106
Guess what you learned?
00:37:07.106 --> 00:37:11.528
10 words Enjoy, what do you like to drink, what do you like to eat?
00:37:11.528 --> 00:37:14.030
And thank you very much.
00:37:14.030 --> 00:37:16.389
And you made a very good living.
00:37:16.389 --> 00:37:23.291
But sometimes those well, every time we had only in-house growth.
