Opening a new restaurant during a global pandemic is no easy feat, but Encina survived.
Matt Balke, alongside his business partner Corey McCombs, took over Oak Cliff restaurant space Bolsa in February 2020. During the process of preparing to open their new concept, Encina, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and the team had to put things on pause.
“At the time, we didn’t know. We thought oh, this will only last three, four, five weeks,” Balke says. “Who knew it would disrupt the service industry for so long?”
Balke held out, and decided to open in October 2020 at 25% capacity.
“Eventually it was like, if you don’t open, you’re going to run out of money,” Balke says. “Talk about struggle — having to be a new restaurant that doesn’t have a to-go program in a neighborhood where some people know me, some people don’t. It was very rough going for the first couple of months.”
As the saying goes, when it rains it pours. And when the “ice-pocalypse” hit the following February, Balke was about ready to call it quits.
“That happened during Valentine’s Day, and we lost about 700 reservations that weekend,” Balke says. “We really decided that we wanted to close that Sunday, Valentine’s Day, as we were driving home. We had 700 people’s worth of food in the walk-in and no money coming in. But the next weekend, the ice melted. Everyone was just tired of being inside and we decided to keep going and building and growing.”
Last month, Encina set a sales record.
A main contributor to Encina’s success over the last few years is its blue corn pancakes. These sweet brunch treats have recently received recognition as part of “H-E-B’s Quest for Texas Best” competition, in which the Texas grocery giant holds a competition for the best and most creative Texas-made goods. Winners are awarded sizable cash prizes and spots on H-E-B shelves.
Out of 450 entries, Encina’s blue corn pancake mix was awarded the third place prize of $10,000.
“It was really random,” Balke says of the origin of the pancakes. “We took my grandmother’s recipe for her cornbread when we opened and we were doing this blue cornmeal cornbread with whipped feta and sorghum butter, and decided this has potential for a pancake.”
The team took 11 shots at the pancakes, trying out flavors and toppings such as peanut butter chips, chocolate chips, white chocolate, blueberries, bananas, apricots and more. Balke’s favorite sweet treat is butterscotch, and adding that to the mix was an “aha” moment.
“On the 11th try, we added the butterscotch and salted caramel and a goat’s milk caramel that we make,” Balke says. “We all sat around, ate the pancakes, and were like ‘holy shit, this is it.’”
From there, word of mouth spread and the pancakes took off. In November of last year, in an effort to raise a little extra money around the holidays, Encina decided to package the mix. A perfect gift for stocking stuffers, teachers, parents, and anybody, really, they sold over 13,000 in a month.
Aside from these famous pancakes, Encina offers a rotating seasonal menu with a variety of classic items.
Duck-leg confit with melon salad, jalapenos, goat yogurt and sumac, and the Berkshire pork chop, an enormous portion served with poblano-cheddar grits, bacon and braised collard greens highlight the menu.
“We like this place to be where you can come in and spend 10 bucks, or 500 bucks,” Balke says. “You can come in in flip flops and athletic shorts or a tuxedo and you can still have a time where you’re comfortable, where you feel dressed to the nines, or dressed down for the couch.”
Balke strives to make Encina feel like home. The restaurant has had marriage proposals, held weddings and baby showers, and has become a comfortable neighborhood spot.
“It feels great, and there’s still battles to overcome, but between breaking a sales record and the H-E-B pancake mix, it’s awesome,” Balke says. “It’s still the restaurant business, you’re still hanging on by a thread every single day. But maybe our thread just got a little wider.”
