Infusing Family Recipes with Innovative Dining

EMILY: I’m Emily Washcovick, Yelp’s Small Business Expert. Typically, I share a story featuring conversations with a business owner as well as someone who wrote them a Yelp review. This week is the fourth episode in a mini series that I’m calling The San Angelo series. We’re back with black badge Yelp Elite reviewer Josh H., who has been reviewing businesses and contributing to Yelp for more than a decade now.

He’s shared his experience with a weight lifting gym, his favorite tap house, and a wonderful donut shop in San Angelo, Texas. Today Josh and I are talking to Chef Jason Helfer, owner of Peasant Village Restaurant. Chef Jason and his father, Chef Art Helfer, opened their restaurant in 1995 serving a blend of cuisines from their world travels as a military family, and using recipes from a family cookbook dating back to the 1780s.

We’ll start our conversation with Josh and his story of discovering Peasant Village.

JOSH: I had heard about them from people at work and they had all had good things to say about it. So I did my usual recon, looked at Yelp, looked at Google, looked at their website itself, and everything that I saw—from pictures to reviews to the menu that they had running in, Jason his menu seasonally with what’s available and what he can find—it was like, okay this looks really good.

This looks different. This looks unique. It’d be a great place to go solo for drinks or to get a good meal or to, particularly go for a date night. And that’s what I was actually looking for. I went in and from the very first time that I went with—at the time, my girlfriend, who’s now my wife (maybe Peasant Village had something to do with that)—I wined and dined and impressed from the get-go.

From the moment you walk in, it feels high end, but not pretentious. You feel VIP even though you’re not necessarily VIP—the caliber of professionalism of the hosts, the look in the modernity of the venue just feels different than anything else in San Angelo.

It’s just got transported from a major metropolitan city and dropped into little old West Texas, San Angelo. You’re given this great treatment. The food is just different. The menu is very different. You’re going to find menu items that combine and infuse different ethnic cuisines. Jason has these, they were these duck brie egg rolls. We never had anything like that before. And they were just amazing with the sauce that they came with. And then the calamari with panko crust, had never had anything like that. They looked like mozzarella sticks. They’re so big when they come out. Me and Stacy were just blown away by those, and then she to this day believes she had one of the best ribeye steaks she’s ever had in her life there. And everything was good.

Different food, super high quality. The treatment from the staff. Talking to Jason was particularly unique cuz I’m a foodie and I can just sit there and talk about food and preparation and cuisines for hours. And Jason was ready to go toe to toe with me talking about, here’s where we get this, here’s why we do this. I’m thinking about doing this on the menu. You should stay tuned for what’s coming up in a few weeks with what we’re doing here. And Stacy could tell I was in my zone type thing. So he can be the foodie with you and talk to you about that. But at the end of the day, you can tell he just wants to do something different and put in experience with you while you’re there.

And then when you leave, and that’s as much as the food and the drinks and the venue. I come for the experience. And that’s one of the reasons I like this place that I go back and I tell other people about it because it’s just so uniquely different from anything else we have in Tom Green County, frankly.

EMILY: That was a great description, but before we hand it over to Jason, can you talk to me about the atmosphere and the ambiance of the restaurant. What kind of vibe does Peasant Village have?

JOSH: It looks like basically just someone’s big house, like a residential house that you’re going into. Porch out front. Very welcoming, non-intimidating. And then you walk in and it’s as if you walked into a living room slash dining room at your friend’s house, and he’s about to have a bunch of friends over something like that.

Again, not pretentious, but you can definitely feel it’s very modern. It’s classy and it’s not super bright. It’s not necessarily dimly lit though either. It just feels welcoming and again, It’s like going to a friend’s house that invited you over and has got the evening ready for you.

You’re greeted by first name, ‘Hey, Mr. Hocket, how are you again?’ That VIP treatment starts right away. Bar is straight into the back. You can take a seat up there or take a seat at the tables. There’s windows as if you’re, again in a dining room off to the left and the right and then the kitchen is around back there.

It’s not a big place by any means. But that smaller intimate feel is something that I like about the place. It could never get too loud or too crowded or too rambunctious cuz it’s just meant to be smaller and more intimate that way. And it’s just got a very calm, soothing, quiet vibe to it. And then you’re given that VIP treatment the whole time. You’re always being taken care of, checked on, but not to the point that it’s intrusive or burdensome, but you’re never left alone to feel forgotten though, either.

It’s like a major metropolitan restaurant from somewhere else, a bigger city. And that caliber of dining just got dropped right in the middle of West Texas. So it’s a specialty place to go. That’s for sure.

EMILY: That’s awesome. Jason, given all of Josh’s context, how would you describe Peasant Village and what do you think he hit on that really sung out to you as spot on? And then what would you add, if anything?

JASON: He’s spot on. I’ve been doing this professionally for 36 years now. I’ve had the restaurant 27 years going on, 28 coming up shortly. And it is right—I’ll go toe to toe with the clients and see if they’re comfortable. What would you like for the menu to be added to or what would you like to see different? And so I listen to all my clients. I’m not that stubborn chef that is, ‘if you don’t like it, you can get out.’ It’s more along the lines of, ‘Hey, I want you to come in and feel comfortable, not overwhelmed with everything that’s going on inside.’

And that when you do sit down, you are addressed and you are felt as VIP treatment. Everybody there deserves to be treated respectfully and also to be treated with the highest dignity in the restaurant industry, which is starting to go away, which is frustrating. But when you go and you work hard and you wanna spend some money and have a good night, you want to feel that you’re not in San Angelo.

And that’s what I designed the restaurant to be. When you enter San Angelo, you feel that you’re in a different location. You are from a metroplex area, or bring some childhood memories or memories that, hey, I was here in Austin, or I was here in Dallas, and wow, this was just like this.

And get that conversation sparking. I like to come out, talk to all the tables and meet them and greet them and let them know that they’re very appreciated. Thank you for coming in and supporting our local businesses and I do the best I can. I may not be able to get to every table, but I definitely make a good run at it.

But being there for 27 years is half my life. Actually, it really is, and I just enjoy it as much as I did day one as I do now. And there are a couple days that I pull my hair out, but good thing I got long hair. That’s a good thing.

EMILY: I love it. That’s so awesome. But I also need to know Why San Angelo? Did you grow up there and then go see these food experiences in other places and wanna bring it there? What made you decide that was the right place for Peasant Village?

JASON: I didn’t make the decision. My dad did. So basically my dad being military, traveling all over the world as we did and growing up in the food industry since 1786, and it goes back to the 11th century. I found out that’s why we’re call Peasant Village, is that someone in our family was either in—it would’ve been Poland or Czechoslovakia or Ireland or whatever in the peasant villages, that they were either the butcher, the farmer, the baker, the cook, something along that line.

One of our family members kept that tradition going. It’s one of those things that my dad when he was here has always wanted to open up a restaurant and the concept evolved over the years. And the reason why we’re there in San Angelo is because we moved there when my dad retired, cuz my mother said, ‘you know what, we’re moving back home whether you like it or not.’

And we just basically took it and opened up and we brought things to San Angelo that they weren’t used to. It was mainly chicken fried steaks, enchiladas, barbecue, and that was pretty much it back in ‘95. And a lot of people didn’t really know how to react to it, but when they did go in and they did see the options that they were seeing in the big cities that were actually in San Angelo, It was the home run and everybody enjoyed it.

I’ve traveled the world. I lived in Australia for four years doing restaurant consulting there. I lived in Europe for a year, working in some great restaurants, whether it be one or two or three days or a week. And just exploring the culinary world and really absorbing everything I could, and just bringing it and always evolving. My menu is something that, one, keeps us chefs from getting burnt out. That’s one. And it also keeps everybody on their toes and say, ‘Wow what’s gonna be next? What are we doing today?’

EMILY: That’s such a cool backstory. I wanna circle back to this whole idea of VIP experience, cuz I feel like some places maybe they’re a little heavier on high quality products or how the menu is sourced. Or some places are maybe heavier on customer service. It seems to me like those are equally huge pillars for you. Do you remember that VIP service always being something from the start? Is that something your dad brought to the business? Has it evolved? Why is it, do you think that you really focus on creating that next level, not just giving them great food to eat?

JASON: We got tired. We got tired of going to restaurants and being ignored. Got tired of going to restaurants, sitting down there, and you wait. Our waitress would come around, five minutes, 10 minutes, whatever it is. It was to be understood at the very beginning that quality service and making sure that they’re comfortable and they’re happy is a good chunk of the experience. And it goes with the lighting and the decor and so forth and what plates and so what are you eating on and so on. And I told my dad, I said, the food has to be equal to customer service because some people will come back because the service is just incredible. They will. And if the food is off that day, they’ll go back and give it a chance. But if the service is not right, but yet the food is just incredible, they’re not gonna go back. They’re gonna be more hesitant to go back because they had a dining experience. And it starts at the very beginning when you walk in, you don’t go up there and say, it’s gonna be 15 minutes wait. You got to wait around. You don’t do that.

You say, Hey, welcome to the Peasant Village Restaurant. Hi, my name is Mark. I’ll be more glad to take care of you. You don’t have to have a reservation, but did you happen to make some this evening? And that kind of sets the tone going, ‘Oh shit, I don’t have any. But is there availability?’

‘Oh, at the moment it would be about a 15 minute wait. If you’d like to go to the bar and sit down and. Have a cocktail while a table comes up, be more than glad to do that for you. Or you can sit up at the bar and enjoy your entree and your beverages for the evening.’ And it’s just giving them a choice, but making them feel wanted, making them feel that they are important because they are. And if they’re not happy at the beginning. You’ve already set the mood for the whole situation.

EMILY: I think there’s something about being the leader as chef and owner, and that attitude trickling down to the staff, but I know it’s a lot more work than that too, to get your staff to really exemplify that same care for the customer that you have. What would you attribute your staff’s ability to do that to? Is it the people you hire, the way you train them, the culture and how they support each other? What gives them the ability to do that and really provide that level of service that you would provide if you were able to serve everyone yourself?

JASON: I give them the opportunity to take care of, first of all, themselves. I wanna make sure that their mind is right when they come in. I wanna make sure they’re in a good mood, they’re happy, and they wanna be there. And I started with that. And then we go into service and I let them create their own persona.

And it gives them the opportunity to either be themselves or be someone else. And if it works out, great. If it doesn’t, then we sit down and we tweak a couple things and approach it in a manner to where everybody’s on board for one thing. The word like is used every other word.

And we don’t do that because that is something that…it’s not appropriate for me. But they understand and they do what they feel comfortable. And it works out smoothly cause everybody has their own way of approaching things, especially with whatever may be going on that day. Whether it be, a fight with their spouse or whether it be dealing with the kids that don’t want to go to school or running late. Or if they’re just having a spot-on day where nothing has gone wrong and everything’s going smooth. So I let them be who they want to be and I listen to ’em. That’s what a lot of restaurant managers are not doing. They’re barking, they’re demanding. They have to start really listening and understanding what’s going on with that person.

Cause we’re all different. We all have a different genetic standpoint, and we need to start listening to our staffs and saying, ‘Hey, what can I do to help you feel better when you’re here?’ And that’s what I do. I just make sure that they’re comfortable and that they’re happy. And then when that happens, it all works itself out. It literally does. And if they’re having a bad day, I say, ‘You know what I’d like for you to do? Go sit outside, go across the park for 15, 20 minutes. Gather your thoughts together. And if that doesn’t happen and you’re still in this frame of mind, then go and take the evening off.’

Cause I want you to be happy where you are. And if that means by you going home and doing that’s understandable. It’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be another day.

EMILY: That’s such a unique perspective, I think for leaders to have, particularly in the culinary world. It’s always so high pressure and stressful, worrying about covering tables if one employee is out, being short one person for some restaurants can lead to a complete meltdown. But you seem to approach this from the longer game. You care about your employees as people outside of your business. Is that just something that comes naturally to you?

JASON: It does, because I’ve been in that situation. I understand what it feels to be barked at. I know what it feels like to be degraded and talked down to. And I feel that is an inappropriate way, especially with the new generations that are coming forth on a daily basis. I’ll say that, it’s something that as a business owner you want to address everything from a distance. You wanna create the platform for them to be successful and to give them the skills to where they can open up their own place and treat them as family.

That’s what we forget about. We forget about the fact that you gotta understand, we’re gonna be around each other more than your own siblings, and we’re gonna get to know each other on a different scale. And it’s just something that some business owners don’t want to hear. Don’t wanna hear your problems. I got problems. I got money, I got this. Here’s one thing. If you don’t come to grips and you don’t really want to go that route, don’t be in the restaurant industry. Don’t be a business owner. And if you’re gonna be a business owner, then hire the right management that’s gonna address it.

And so that you’re out of the way. Because a lot of business owners don’t understand that when you’re there all the time, the staff sometimes feel nervous and they feel that they’re not doing their job or you’re looking over their shoulders and trying to tweak ’em, this and that. I used to be that way.

And I learned that it’s not that way when I went to Europe because it happened to me and I’m going, I feel really belittled at this point when in fact I had to step back and look at myself and say, ‘You’re the problem, not them. But you’re the problem. You can fix it. You can make this work to where it’s gotta be done.’

EMILY: That’s a really great perspective. Okay. Josh, you mentioned it a sentence or two in the beginning, but if you could just give me like a minute or so on kinda how you see this translates and how the service hits every time, but there’s still these humans behind it and they have their own personality that they bring to the service.

JOSH: It’s interesting for me too to hear it from Jason’s side that there is intentional training and development and selection that goes behind sustaining that, because I’ve seen it clearly every time I’ve gone in, not just once or twice, but every time from door until departure. You’re given that VIP treatment of, they’re just well spoken, they’re calm. They don’t seem stressed out. They’re happy that you’re there. And that’s where the VIP part comes in. They’re welcoming me in. They want me here again. They’re excited to see me back. They remembered the drink I had last time. They’re ready to tell me about the specials that are back on the menu this time.

Never feeling rushed, but also not feeling forgotten. And Jason said, the food is a sensory experience and that’s a very, I guess it’s subjective, but it’s an objective. Wow, that was delicious, I want to come back again, but it’s that emotional empathetic feeling you get with the people there, with Jason, with his staff, with his host, with the bartenders. You engage with them. You talk with them, and you feel like you’re striking up this friendship. And that’s really what pulls you back in just as much, if not more than the food.

And that’s why I say this place is just so much different and such an outlier from anywhere else. And it becomes that special treat like date night or special occasion thing because, it’s just that. It’s the full experience from the gastronomically, but also emotionally in just the environment that you’re in. It puts you somewhere else and it stays with you when you leave.

And hearing him say that, you don’t know what that person’s coming in the door with, but you can be darn sure you change it when they get there. And you can change their attitude and their motion for the rest of the day based on what they’re going to experience there.

And I’ve always gone in, usually excited just that I’m going, but I always leave in just as good, if not a better, mood with a stomach full of really good food too. It’s a special place to go to and hearing the backside of how that is intentionally created and sustained is neat for me to hear from Jason.

EMILY: Let’s dig into the food and the menu. I think it’s really cool when restaurants change menus with the seasons. Jason, can you speak to why you chose to do that? I would assume some of it is what’s available locally, but is there some element of just wanting to be creative as a chef?

JASON: When you get down to writing a menu, the way I’ve always looked at it is, you’ve got almost every Mexican restaurant that’s almost damn near identical, but one may have a different salsa, one may have a different style of chicken and their enchilada, or they do a fajita differently and so forth, but it’s essentially the same product.

When I go and create a menu, I want to create a menu where when you go in there, you have options that either bring you back to your childhood. Or something that entices you that you’ve seen elsewhere, whether it be another restaurant or whether it be on television. And I want to bring those choices to you at one location, and you wanna always keep it fresh on the availability of products.

There really are no seasons anymore. We gotta reevaluate how seasons are. As a chef, I have to stay creative. My mind has to keep on changing and evolving with today’s palates, whether it be gluten intolerant or allergic to garlic, or you don’t like this or that. And so I try to create dishes or specials to accommodate those that are looking for that vegetarian, vegan. I give that opportunity to the back of the house to be creative as well, because you do get stagnant creating the same dishes over and over again. Sure, you have to have your staples, you have to have your steak and crab cakes. Restaurants gotta have some staples there. That when they go in there, they’re gonna be expecting that steak, that is the one that they really want to go to for the steak, or they wanna go there for the crawfish chip, or the calamari.

Or they wanna go there for specific items that they know I do every year at this particular time, whether it be the duck with a cranberry jalapeno chutney, or whether it be the port wine chicken, or things that are just memorable for them at this time of year. So I try to remember the best I can.

It doesn’t do well all the time. That’s what’s funny. And do the best I can to figure that out. And it’s always evolving. So with food costs, getting where they are chefs are starting to be a lot more creative with other items. So I’ll be bringing some things that are really a lot more time consuming, which are pierogies and doing some empanadas and doing a little bit of something different, some Brazilian style food pecan and things along that line that I’ll be creating this new menu with.

And it also gives the staff that kind of morale. Because man, I’m doing the same damn thing over shift. Come on, this is driving me nuts. You know what? Here’s a bag. Here’s what we have to work with. Have fun. And if it’s great, if it’s a home run, fantastic. If it’s not, we know not to do it again. I’m not gonna get mad at you. Or how can you get mad at somebody for experimenting? How can you get mad at somebody for trying? If you’re gonna do that, don’t pin it off on someone else. Do it yourself all the time, and so you know that you’re happy with your own self. That’s how I look at it.

EMILY: All right, Josh, on the flip side, how does that change your dining experience? You’ve been there multiple times. I’m sure you get some things over and over, but why do you like that variety? How does that maybe connect you to wanting to come back and try new things?

JOSH: The way the menu’s laid out is it’s not huge. And I prefer menus like that because it is my belief that anyone can do less items better. You’re gonna have a higher quality because of the more focus you can put on the few items that you do offer. I like the fact that there’s some mainstays in there from the entrees and the appetizers and I think even a couple of consistent desserts, but then there’s always gonna be one to two new items on there too.

So I can always go back to those staples that I’ve come to expect and really love and enjoy. But then the fact that Jason where he sources from, the way he prepares it is intentional. It’s not just we’re gonna just try this. We’re just gonna do it this way because we can get by with it. I’ve never got the vibe that good enough or average is acceptable. And from the off the cuff talks we’ve had there’s a very intentional selection of why it’s made, the way it’s made, where it’s sourced from, whether it be seasonal, whether it, because that’s the flavor he gets, that’s the quality he gets.

We can call it seasonality. We can just call it variability or adjustment, whatever. He’ll try something new like those duck egg rolls with the brie and the chutney. They look different. A little bit similar like an egg roll, but different enough to where you just wanna try it because it’s so different. You gotta know—so there’s some food adventure in there too, that you can try something new that you’ve never had before.

When I come in, the first thing I check besides the staples, can I get the thing that I know I’m looking for, but what’s new this time? What can I expand the palate with? And I almost always find something that I have to try that’s new and I haven’t had quite that way before. Like he said, we’ll do something that other restaurants do. But we’re gonna do it in a way you’ve probably never seen before. And that’s a recurring pattern or theme that I see there is that it is definitely done in a new and novel way that’s outside the box. And I think that is a testament to that exploratory, adventurous, and hey guys – here’s the stuff. Experiment with it. Try it. See what lands. That’s where you find that novelty and you discover new things and trends start. And that alone will bring me back with those kinds of things.

So again, hearing the backside that he does this on purpose, me having seen it on the menu that way is a treat to see where that comes from, cuz it’s intentional and purposeful and it keeps me coming back.

EMILY: Josh, I’m going to have you read your review, which was five stars for Peasant Village.

JOSH: Great food and stupendous service. Best steak I’ve had since moving to town. Start to end, a great experience. Worth the higher prices for sure. Chef Jason is awesome. Talk to him a bit if you get a chance. A wiz of all things outside the box cooking. I’d get everything I had on the first visit again in a blink.

EMILY: Jason, that was a pretty perfect review, which I’m sure you appreciate. But reviews can be tricky for business owners, and restaurants in particular. How do you handle reviews, good and bad, and still keep that positive customer service going at Peasant Village?

JASON: I’m as honest as you’re gonna get with whether the reviews are good or bad.

I have good reviews. I have bad reviews. The bad reviews, I listen to it, I see it, and then I also talk to my staff and say can we go over this and why this individual wrote this? And sometimes it’s the client that came in, they were in a bad mood, and there’s nothing you can do to get ’em out of that, whether you can get the VIP treatment or not. They’re gonna have that attitude. And sometimes you’ve got that one person who is a food critic and doesn’t know the first thing about boiling water. And I take everybody’s criticism.

For me, I don’t read them on a regular basis because that can set the mood for my day. That can set the mood for the week or the new menu. And so I honestly really don’t read my reviews. I value everyone’s opinion. Now, if a review needs to be addressed to me, then yes, I will address that review being positive or negative.

And everybody deserves their opinion, and sometimes their opinions are either spot on or they’re not correct. And I would address it accordingly. So when people give me good reviews, I am very appreciative. And if they give me bad reviews, I’m also appreciative cuz it’s maybe something I need to correct or something I have ignored. So I stay out of that loop the best I can until it’s addressed to me that needs to be looked at.

EMILY: I appreciate that candor, and the idea that sometimes a bad review is a result of someone else’s bad day, but sometimes it’s the result of a bad day at the restaurant, and that you take the time to know the difference. That can be tough for business owners, to not take everything so personally.

Josh, we’ve talked about why you review before, but what about your experience at Peasant Village made you want to leave a review?

JOSH: I truly like doing reviews mainly because as a consumer myself. As an uber foodie that likes going out and trying new things, finding new experiences, both local and regional, wherever I’m traveling to or anything like that, I want to share that with other people because, I mean, I do food writing and food blogging.

Half of my passion is sharing the stories of the places that were different, that were just fun, that left in experience and left something different than you can get any other place. So this ended up being exactly like that, that experience a VIP treatment, being able to look at a menu that is done in a way that is different and novel than anyone else.

Being able to talk to a chef that isn’t talking down to you, but talking with you about the passion for making food. That calming, soothing, welcoming feeling you get from the staff. I experienced it. I want to keep experiencing, again, myself. The next best thing I can do is make sure other people hear about it, become aware of it, and go get that experience too.

Because I think if you’re into food at all, You’re gonna want to go to a place like this. So I feel it’s somewhat of an obligation to make sure other people like me find these places and go experience them and then tell it to five other people so they come in and experience it. Cause it’s just that different and I’m a local here in San Angelo. This place is in my backyard. Of course this is the kind of place I want other people to go learn about, find, try, and then the win-win is that Jason and his establishment, people that I’ve come to like, they get customers in the door. So it’s win-win all around by sharing that experience. That’s why I do reviews.

EMILY: To close us out, let’s talk a little bit about your connection to the community. Jason, you’ve alluded to it a few times, and after being in business for as long as you have in San Angelo, you probably can’t help but be involved in the community and neighborhoods around the restaurant. Why is that connection so important to you?

JASON: You could be a lone wolf, and be that type that doesn’t want to get involved in any kind of community outreach or help fundraise for the community that you live in. And when you are living in a community that’s very tight-knit and that perspective getting involved is important as a business owner cause it shows that you care. It shows that you wanna make the community a better area and that you really want to be a longstanding entity. In your community for years to come.

And when you go in there and you donate your day or two days or you go in there and you donate food or whatever it may be by gift cards or other, it really lets them know that, hey, I am really here to help out the best I can with today’s times, and if it’s something I can do to help you raise that extra dollar, I’m all for it.