Courtesy Glens Falls Business Journal
By Susan Elise Campbell
Mike and Jenna Fernandez, who started the Mexican food truck Tres Mijas in 2022, have a new venture. It is a new restaurant of the same name taking over the space at 21 Bay Street in the heart of Glens Falls.
“We had a few hurdles, and now we are very happy in our new location,” Mike said.
Fernandez said he has always been in the service industry, including eight years in the bar industry. Jenna teaches sixth grade at Glens Falls Middle School. The city has been the couple’s home and the place they are raising three daughters, for whom the food truck and restaurant are named.
Like the food truck, Tres Mijas restaurant will offer from-scratch menu items featuring recipes from the Fernandez family.
“It’s a style of Mexican cooking not seen around here,” Fernandez said. “These are recipes from my Dad, who is from Mexico, and my Mom, who learned from his family.”
“Mexico is a big country with a wide variety in styles of cooking from different regions,” he said. “For example, the way my family makes mole sauce has different ingredients than what you would see in Mexican restaurants around here.”
Fernandez said it is not difficult to offer Mexican dishes on a restaurant menu. Many of the dishes and sauces are available from restaurant suppliers “for cost purposes and ease,” he said. But his are made from fresh raw ingredients, some of which are shipped directly from food distributors, such as peppers from California.
The food truck started out on Broad Street in front of Glens Falls Hospital. Once word of the Tres Mijas brand got out, Fernandez said he started receiving invitations to do events in the area.
Soon the truck was set up at breweries and different businesses, such as the Ace and Target warehouse parking lots, where hundreds of employees could sample the food. Other types of events were also scheduled, such as teacher appreciation days and private functions.
The food truck continues to operate until wintertime. Whether it will reopen in the spring has yet to be decided, he said. Jenna has had summers open to give support, but also schedules events and promotes Tres Mijas through social media.
“It’s harder to plan during winter because there are so many variables,” said Fernandez. “If we move forward with the food truck, we will do events such as the Renaissance festival and the T-shirt factory, like we did this year, but not general vending on the street.”
Fernandez said he always wanted to do a restaurant but “only if it made sense and was a smart decision.” Then an opportunity opened up at 21 Bay Street, formerly Laurella’s Restaurant.
“We were among the first to know about it,” he said.
The kitchen staff is ready to start as soon as occupancy is granted. Mike and Jenna are pleased to have Paul MacPherson as head chef and Jack Filion as the sous chef. Both were formerly at Radici and have “a unique set of skills that are really remarkable,” said Fernandez.
“There is not a whole lot I can teach Chef MacPherson,” he said. “I will share the recipes my family has known and we are really excited to see what he is going to do.”
“There were only a few things we told him we wanted to see on the menu that our loyal followers at the food truck were adamant about,” said Jenna. “Paul and Jack are building from those staples and it has been wonderful to taste test some of the dishes they have come up with.”
Since the space already had a commercial kitchen, the work the couple has done on the interiors has been mostly cosmetic. The ambience is “light, bright, inviting, and has a relaxed, fun atmosphere” that will appeal to a range of clients, from families to business lunches to couples on a date night, Jenna said.
“It has a great bar space that we are trying to capitalize on,” she said. “People can eat there or just come in for happy hour.”
“There is some unique tile work that Mike put up,” she said. “When we were picking out paint and tile and had samples on the wall, Mike’s Dad said that when he looked at a particular combination, he felt like he was driving down a street in his old neighborhood.”
The couple said the community wants them to have success in the new venture. In particular, they have received a lot of support both from City Hall and local businesses, Jenna said, particularly with navigating the licensing process.
“We love Glens Falls and the direction the city is headed,” they said. “We are happy to contribute to it.”
Learn more online at www.tresmijasgf.com and on Facebook.