Loco Boys Brewing is a relatively new restaurant, having just opened in 2023.
This will be their second year participating in Traverse City’s Restaurant Week, in which participating restaurants offer multi-course meals for discounted prices.
Bryon Figuero, or “Chef Fig” as his coworkers call him, showed IPR one of the dishes — carne con papas — from their restaurant week multi-course menu. It’s a kind of Mexican steak and potato dish.
Carne con papas includes an herb called epazote, which is quite rare in Michigan.
“It’s a Mexican herb that was actually really hard for me to find,” said Figuero. “I ended up getting Ken's Organic to grow it for me and It took him like six or eight weeks to get it up and growing. I think I'm the only one that has it in the state because I checked everywhere and I couldn't find it.”
Chef Fig puts a lot of care into the Restaurant Week menu because oftentimes it’s an opportunity for people to try something new.
“Food is expensive — dining out has gone up,” said Figuero. “There's a lot of challenges involved with that. And if you only have a budget to dine out a couple times here and there, restaurant week is a great opportunity to not lose the bank and try new restaurants.”
While this event is often used to boost revenue for restaurants during the slow winter season, Figuero says they haven’t had that problem this year.
Still though, it’s good to be busy on the off season.
“ You get into this go-go-go and then the slow season comes,” said Figuero, and you know, muscle memory can fade.”
As he finished cooking the steak, Figuero and his sous-chef debated on how to plate the new dish. Figuero says it’s common practice to have the steak lay flat on the plate, but he feels like breaking that rule. They decide to stack it instead – a layered dish of steak, potato cake, and a sofrito base.
“Breakin' the law! Breakin' the law!” Figuero said to his sous-chef. “It's easy to break the rules with such wonderful encouragement.”
To find out more about Loco Boys Brewing or any of the other restaurants participating in Restaurant Week, visit downtowntc.com to find full menus and more.
