In the slow but steady Atlantification of the Historic District’s westside, Brandon Aguílar is the fresh face of his family’s foray into Savannah’s restaurant scene.

Before the calendar recognizes the new year, Birria Spot will open in the corner property tucked just north of The Bowery apartments, serving up the Aguílars’ spin on the namesake brothy stew as well as a creative carte of Far East meets South of the Border fare.

“We’re like the first true test of this spot,” Aguílar said. “This area, this side of town, it’s growing a lot with all these new apartments.”

Two blocks south, A Taco Affair took root in a planta baja resto space in the Skylark sixteen months ago, but there is nothing northward until you hit Anita Deli Sandwich, CBP, Origin Coffee Bar, and Rancho Alegre.

Another locally owned non-chain eatery is a great sign.

“I’m patiently impatient,” he coined, anticipating a soft opening before December, “wanting to open but not to overpromise and underdeliver. We want to have that good first impression.”

In a few weeks’ time, Aguílar hopes that Birria Spot diners will look a lot like Red, the logo mascot he designed for the restaurant: a tortilla-like smiley face delightedly dripping with the distinctive ruby broth.

HOLD MY BIRRIA

“We’re birria-centric,” Brandon Aguílar said. “That’s our bread and butter.”

Tortillas will be soaked in the vibrant oil and toasted on the flatop to create that signature crispy red exterior, and the all-purpose title potion will feature throughout the menu, also served separately as a sipping side fortified with meat, onions, and cilantro.

“At home, it’s really a celebration dish. It’s for the holidays traditionally,” Aguílar explained. “You sit down with a bowl and handmade tortillas, and you dip them and eat the meat with a special birria hot sauce.”

Birria Spot’s menu will be “predominately Mexican,” and the Asian elements come in primarily because it is his “favorite cuisine.”

Though he grew up eating his mother’s marvelous Mexican food, his love for “ramen, sushi, spicy-limey noodles, ma la, lo mein, and stir frys” runs just as deep, which is why he brainstormed a brand that weds the two.

“On top of that, a lot of the ingredients we use are similar to Asian ingredients: garlic, dried chiles, ginger, limes, cilantro,” Aguílar reasoned. “Why not? We have them on-hand.”

In addition to a simple garlic noodles dish, other Asian plates will playfully pair birria and the Far East familiars: egg rolls to be dunked into the broth and birria bao buns stuffed with meat, cilantro, onions, and radishes.

Recently all the rage on the socials, Birria Spot’s ramen promises to be a “premium presentation” far better than the humdrum homemade renditions.

“We want to plate it just like you went to a ramen place with chopsticks and a little spoon and a side dippable taco,” he explained.

Behind the counter, three screens will display all of the offerings, the first filled with birria-based bites. Bowls, salads, and sides will comprise another subset, including papas cambray: chile-lime potatoes baby red potatoes roasted with a milder mix of guajillo and chipotle. The final menu will list small bites, kids meals, and drinks.

Aguílar plans to add seasonal items to his scratch-made menu, café de olla and Mexican hot chocolate during the holidays and al pastor when spring pineapples return, and he will make his own New York-style cheesecake, while fresh breads and pastries will be sourced from local bakers.

RESTAURANT ROOTS

Twenty years ago, the Aguílar family owned El Molino Viejo, a 4000-square foot Mexican restaurant in Warner Robins, a “traditional sit-down” resto that served the standards: chips and salsa, ground-beef tacos, and shredded chicken everything.

“I was young,” Brandon Aguílar recalled. “I was running around in the kitchen. I remember being in the cold room.”

For far longer, the family has been at the forefront of Pearson Farm (Fort Valley), Central Georgia’s esteemed provider of peaches and pecans where his father, Israel, is in charge of field operations and his mother, Maria, handles accounts in an administrative role.

“He’s been there for 40 years. He started when he was 17,” said a proud son. “They were translating for my grandpa, and then, little by little, as he got older, he left the crews to my dad.”

After college, Brandon Aguílar sold fruit and did merchandising for the farm and then switched to machinery.

“I’ve had my fair share of hours of tractor work. We know work,” Aguílar added with a laugh.

Too young to learn the cook’s life at El Molino Viejo, his own restaurant background was a brief stint on the grill at a Chipotle in Warner Robins two years ago.

“No one wanted to do the grill job,” he said. “You’re the one actually cooking the meat and the rice and the beans. You’ve got to clean at night. I wanted to learn the fast-casual kitchen flow.”

Though he loved growing up in the state’s wide-open farming spaces, Aguílar admitted that he wanted a change and came to Savannah this past April. For years, the entire family has frequented the Hostess City, and his mother and father bought land here five years back but have not yet broken ground.

“They want to retire but still work,” their middle son said with another smile.

Birria Spot will provide pensioner income while being an entire family partnership, headed up by Brandon, drawing on his business administration and marketing education.

“This is me from the ground up, bootstrapped out,” he said, looking around at all of the interior work he has GCed and punchlisted himself over the last few months.

In the process of hiring a crew of maybe eight plus a few early-prep parttimers, Aguílar will be in the kitchen leading the cooking crew when the restaurant opens. Right next to him will be his mother, who is taking a month off from Pearson Farms.

A place where the owners are also the head chefs: all in the family.

CORNER COMIDAS

Built back in 2019, the space was originally going to be a low-prep juice bar, but when COVID moved in, that tennant backed out. When the Aguílars signed onto the space, it was “semi-built-out” but remained essentially a shell with a “bare bones kitchen,” per Brandon Aguílar.

The hanging brass lamps are all that remains from that first design.

The family fully outfitted the kitchen, including the installation of an

 exhaust hood, and a gas line was brought in.

“They pulled from Hollingsworth,” he said, pointing to venerable auto repair shop across Montgomery.

Of the nearly 1800 square feet, the dining space makes up a little more than half, including the FOH counter, backed by big bright white subway tiles. Quick bites, composed bowls, and pastries will be prepped and served right there, á la the familiar fast-casual Mexican joints.

On the floor throughout are crisp carraraesque tiles. Repurposed whitewashed planks run the side wall, installed by a Pearson Farm H-2A employee who is a woodworker by trade, accented with floating shelves built by Aguílar’s father that will be filled with “hyper-realistic” succulents and bamboo to blend Mexico and Asia in the decor as well.

Capacity inside is 70 with perhaps 30 more in store on the tucked-away side patio and then two umbrellaed tables on the sidewalk out front.

FARM TO TABLE

From 2021 to 2023, the Aguílars sold their signature stew at the Midland Community Farmers Market, just north of Columbus and an hour’s from Fort Valley.

“I made birria in bulk. Sixty pounds is the most I made, a big pot overflowing,” Brandon Aguílar recalled. He chopped the meat while his mother made the tacos and his fiancée served them to folks who invariably asked if the family had a food truck or a restaurant.

“The recipes and flavors come from her,” said the proud middle son. “She knows the OG rices, the OG beans, and they’re really good.”

At El Molino Viejo, she was the one coming up with the recipes, many of which will be recreated at Birria Spot, adobos for chicken and carne asadas and homemade chorizo.

The marquee recipe, though, is Brandon’s own, a derivation of his mamá’s formula that he has written down as “Secret Birria Recipe.”

“The broth has to be punchy and not just salty, acidic with citrus notes, and not too spicy,” he said of his concoction that allows salinity to enhance the chiles, cinnamon, citrus, and vinegar. His recipe uses red onions for the sweet bite and the “color that brings out the whole dish.”

“You have the green cilantro, the different red hues of the oils, and the purple.”

Guajillos are the primary pepper plus anchos and the occasional chipotle to help “emulate” the toasty smokiness of the birria de tatemada, traditionally slow-cooked over wood in a huge open pit.

“We don’t have a pit here,” Aguílar said and smiled. “That’d be cool for the experience, but I don’t know how the health department would be with that.”

Birria Spot (501 Montgomery Street) will be opening before the end of the year. Stay tuned at https://birriaspot.co/ and @birriaspot.

This article appears in Connect Savannah I July 2024.