Barrio Queen has lost its queen. Silvana Salcido Esparza, a three-time semifinalist for the James Beard Award for best chef in the Southwest, has left the two-year-old Mexican restaurant in Scottsdale.
It also means – despite some Phoenix-based media reports to the contrary – Esparza no longer will be involved with the new Barrio Queen opening this fall in downtown Gilbert.
“I am only at the Barrio Cafe (her 12-year-old Phoenix restaurant near 16th Street and Thomas) and working on moving forward with another concept,” she tells MXSW.
It’s the second time Esparza tried to open a restaurant in downtown Gilbert. Three years ago, a dispute with a landlord caused her to pull a new concept, Barrio Tequileria, from an unfinished space next to Postino Winecafe. The space eventually became Joyride Taco House.
A second location of Barrio Queen is scheduled to open – sans Esparza – in downtown Gilbert’s new Heritage Marketplace with Zinburger and Lo-Lo’s Chicken & Waffles by the end of this year.
“I’m going to take it as a sign that I am not meant for Gilbert,” she says. “First I was, then I was not, then I was on again, then I was not, then on again. And now I’m bound from Gilbert (by a non-compete clause) for five years and five miles.”
