Sep. 10—When it comes to business, Elizabeth and Jonathan Bibiano always have a short-term and a long-term plan. The short-term plan is the newly opened Nobody Calls Me Chicken, a vegan sandwich shop located at the heart of three neighborhoods on the corner of Indian School and Girard.
"I want them to come hungry and leave full and satisfied. We like big portions," owner and chef Elizabeth Bibiano said.
The shop, located at 2904 Indian School NE, is centered on the Nobody Calls Me Chicken sandwich, a tofu creation that mimics the textures and flavors of a fried chicken sandwich.
"For some people tofu's like a bad four-letter word," she said, but trying the shop's namesake sandwich might surprise skeptics.
"When I went on this vegan chicken craze, I dove into everything. Because I was like, 'How do you replicate the flavor and the texture of chicken?' But I didn't want something that was overly processed, and I'm really committed to: if I can make it from scratch, I will."
So, she brought it back to basics: tofu.
"Throw it through a few different processes, add a few different ingredients, and voila."
The Bibianos are partners in business and life. When they were younger, the married couple wanted to open a business but weren't sure how to take the leap. But going through life changes together prepared them to accept failure.
"That's I think an important mental game that you have to have going into such an intense industry, is that you have to be okay with failure in order to improve on your mistakes and get better over time," said owner Jonathan Bibiano. "Failure is part of success, I think was something that we had to learn."
They are also both vegans.
"The short version is that we are vegan and as a vegan chef it's important to me that I don't handle anything that's not vegan," said Elizabeth Bibiano. "And I just like the idea of sharing food with people that is just good. Good food is good food, and oh by the way, it's vegan. I love that moment on people's faces when they realize — 'Wait, there's no meat in this.' "
It took Elizabeth Bibiano a long time to learn she loved cooking.
"I'm not one of those chefs that always knew that I wanted to cook when I was younger. I was like, adamantly, 'I don't want to cook. I don't want to be in the kitchen,' " she said.
But in her 20s, she got into the Food Network and started cooking for dinner parties. Five or six years later, the Bibianos were living on the road in their motorhome, and the constraints of a tiny kitchen in isolated places sparked her creativity.
"That really was what sparked the passion I think of realizing that 'Holy cow, I can really make whatever I want to with just a handful of ingredients,' " she said.
As much as she would have loved to go to culinary school, it felt like she'd waited too long to pursue a career as a chef. Jonathan Bibiano disagreed.
"He actually enrolled me in culinary school here at CNM, and it was the best decision we made. As soon as I walked through those doors that first day of class, I was like 'Holy cow, I'm home. I found it,' " she said.
When Elizabeth graduated from culinary school, the couple hit the ground running. When she was doing finals, they were already planning their future business. An internship with a small business incubator program helped her drown out the noise and focus on what they actually needed to successfully open a restaurant.
That hard work and planning paid off. Not only do the Bibianos already have a successful restaurant, they already have a successful New Mexican vegan restaurant — Vegos — just a six-minute drive away from Nobody Calls Me Chicken.
Vegos, located at 4003 Carlisle NE, started as a food truck, which the couple ran at farmers markets and grew for four years until they were able to open a brick and mortar. That experience helped the Bibianos figure out what qualities they wanted in their next restaurant.
Vegos is a relatively small space within a strip mall that can only seat 14 diners and with no outdoor dining space, so the Bibianos wanted to try opening a restaurant in a stand-alone building with more space for dining.
"Little things like that may make a big difference, but you don't realize those are important until you dive into the industry," said Jonathan Bibiano.
The Bibianos' advice for other entrepreneurs is to learn from mistakes, rely on a support network — friends, family and even other entrepreneurs and business owners in the community — and to get through the "trough of sorrow."
"When you're fresh to a business and you start walking into the depths, it can be overwhelming," said Jonathan Bibiano. "It can feel like you're drowning, but just keep swimming. Know why you're doing what you're doing. Stick to that as hard as possible as long as possible, and you will make it through the trough of sorrow."
The hardest part of running a restaurant is getting enough sleep, said Elizabeth Bibiano. "Your mind is always running, I think if you're in it for the right reasons," she said.
But the customers keep the couple going.
"We always say we want to be the change that we want to see in the world. We want there to be more vegan options, right? We feel that can be a big impact on the world. So, when we're tired and we're exhausted, we have a big goal that we're trying to achieve and that keeps us motivated," he said.
