The new El Jefe Mexican Bar and Grill, 201 N. Airport Road, Shawano, almost didn’t happen.
“El Jefe came about, the opportunity was there for us, but honestly, at first I refused,” Perla Hernandez said. “I didn’t want any more. But my husband, Sergio, always had this idea, like in the back of his head. He wanted to do something very different. So that’s why it all started.”
The Hernandezes already owned three El Tequila restaurants, one each in Shawano, Antigo and New London. They had a busy life with the restaurants and Perla Hernandez’s nursing job. They have three boys, Christian, 17, Matteo, 14, and Julian, 11, who keep them busy.
Perla Hernandez changed her mind, and the couple took over the vacant restaurant in the Shawano Four Seasons Hotel. They took down a wall, put in booths and tables and décor reminiscent of their favorite restaurants in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
Customers who have recently dined at the new restaurant may be surprised to hear that El Jefe is still perfecting its menu.
“It’s been a work in progress,” Perla Hernandez said. “Because everything happened so quickly, and in the middle of this opening and remodeling, we had a trip to Italy that was planned a year ago.”
“Bad timing,” added Sergio Hernandez, with a laugh.
“It’s working out great,” Perla Hernandez said. “We’re just taking it slowly. That’s why we don’t have the menu finalized. We’re still working on it. I think we’re almost done.”
“We don’t want to compete with El Tequila,” Sergio Hernandez said.
“From the beginning, we said that if we’re going to open something, we’re going to make it completely different from El Tequila but also stay true to our flavors and show people that Mexican food isn’t just tacos and burritos,” Perla Hernandez said. “There can be so much more flavor and diverse ingredients.”
At El Jefe, they have noted that there seem to be some favorites from the number of customers ordering certain dishes.
“For favorite plates now, we see puerco relleno, made with pork, sweet potato puree, ancho pepper sauce, sausage, vegetables and pecans,” Perla Hernandez said.
Another dish that is popular since they opened is pollo adobado, chicken made with plantain puree and a citrus sauce.
“We think that when people see ‘pepper,’ the food is going to be spicy, but nothing on the menu, honestly, is going to be spicy,” she said.
“People in town are very afraid to try different things, you know,” Sergio Hernandez said.
Perla Hernandez said this has been one of their biggest barriers.
“They don’t know a lot of the flavors we use,” she said. “But yesterday, we offered a young octopus, grilled. The feedback we received was amazing. Honestly, I haven’t received any bad feedback. We always like to hear the good or the bad. Our goal is to make it right.
“We travel quite a lot, we’ve seen a lot, we’ve tasted quite a lot of food throughout the world, actually.”
“The inspiration came from back where we’re from. We normally go back to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, every year. Every time we go there, we have the best food, the best flavors, and I think that’s what inspired us to the theme and to the food at El Jefe.”
The Hernandezes moved to Shawano in 2008. Sergio Hernandez said the first El Tequila was opened in Antigo, and two years later, another restaurant was opened in New London before the family came to Shawano.
Perla Hernandez said her husband practically grew up in the restaurant world.
“I started at 13, washing dishes,” Sergio Hernandez said.
“His dad was an immigrant worker, from Mexico,” Perla Hernandez added. “He would work at a factory (in Chicago) but also decided to open a restaurant in the late 1980s. Sergio came from a good background of restaurants, he knows what it is, and I kinda got involved with it when I met him, and started learning from the bottom up.”
Sergio Hernandez noted that the owner of a former Hardee’s building in Antigo gave him a land contract.
“That was the only spot that gave us the opportunity,” he said.
Perla Hernandez recalled the challenges of the early years, noting her oldest son was 5 years old, and her second was only five months when the first restaurant opened and had to stay at the restaurant while his parents worked.
The word “El Jefe” translates to “Boss.”
“A lot of people think it refers to Sergio, but in reality, when you walk into El Jefe, you see very personal pictures of our family,” Perla Hernandez said. “And all of them are of his grandpa. Sergio was raised by his grandparents in Guadalajara, Mexico, because it was so hard on his parents working in Chicago.
“His grandfather was Jesus Hernandez. I had the privilege of meeting him. He was always busy with his agave farm, dealing with his cows. El Jefe is a tribute to his grandfather.”
Perla Hernandez now works mostly at El Jefe, while continuing her position as a nurse at ThedaCare.
“I was kinda thrown into this again,” she said, smiling. “But I’m also backing Sergio up, for whatever his dreams are.”
El Jefe offers traditional, unique tastes
