Suzanne Taranto-Etheredge is the CEO and President of Culinaria. She has been deeply involved in the San Antonio food scene and being an advocate for improving the visibility and notoriety of it for a decade. She has a lot to say about our city and the scene.
Transcript:
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Justin Hill: Hello and Bienvenidos, San Antonio. Welcome to The Alamo Hour, discussing the people, places, and passion that make our city. My name is Justin Hill, a local attorney, a proud San Antonioan and keeper of chickens and bees. On The Alamo Hour, you'll get to hear from the people that make San Antonio great and unique, and the best-kept secret in Texas. We're glad that you're here.
All right. Welcome to The Alamo Hour, today's guest is Suzanne Taranto-Etheredge. Suzanne is the president and CEO of Culinaria. Culinaria is a 501(c)(3) committed to promoting San Antonio's area food scene, making it a better food destination and wine destination. They're involved with what everybody has experienced in Restaurant Week, that's something they put together. I learned today I'll have other things like what do you all call them? Food tours.
Suzanne Taranto-Etheredge: Yes. We have a lot, [unintelligible 00:01:00] food trail.
Justin: I didn't know that, I thought that was super cool. I was looking into it. I learned some stuff about our food scene today and I thought I was probably pretty good. I'm the guy that like all the North-side guys who have wives and kids will call and say, "We have a date night, where do I go?" There was a time I was good at that. I'm not as good at that anymore.
Suzanne, thank you for being here. Thank you for joining us. I know it's the middle of Restaurant Week, so it's probably your busiest time of the year.
Suzanne: It is a little busy, but it's a different kind of busy now with COVID protocols in place. It's been very interesting to adapt and change and pivot in the middle of our world. It's never too late to eat out, that's the good news.
Justin: Well, I was looking at the Restaurant Week menus, most of them have to-go options, which is the first time I've ever seen that. We're going to get into Restaurant Week here in a second, but I'm going to do what I do with all of my guests and go through some top 10 questions with you being part of the food scene and the wine scene, yours are going to be a little bit different. You're not going to hurt anybody's feelings so I'm going to ask you some questions and let's start.
Suzanne: You never know, Justin. There's time, you don't know.
Justin: Everybody's thin-skinned these days.
Suzanne: [chuckles]
Justin: I had Stefan Bowers on here and I really appreciated how he was not concerned with hurting anybody's feelings. Let's take inspiration from that today. Starting off, what brought you to San Antonio? How long have you lived here?
Suzanne: Oh, my gosh, a job brought me to San Antonio. I had a choice to live in either Austin or San Antonio. Everyone was cra-- They couldn't believe I chose San Antonio, but I knew the minute that I got here because I was doing a lot of things strategically statewide for another organization, and so I had the choice where I wanted to go. The minute I got to San Antonio, I just was in love. I've been here for gosh, over 15 years now. It's flown by like crazy.
I was just the child when I got here. It's been a really fun ride. San Antonio, more than any other city just, made me feel at home. People here are so welcoming and so gracious, and I just loved it. I'm a Texas girl. I'm from North Texas so it just was a really great fit.
I'm from Canadian,...
