Kitchen Currents: Episode 2 — Seattle’s Bad Chancla Restaurant
Chef José Garzon’s Cuisine Channels Millennial Immigrant Cravings with Pan Latinx-American Creations, Produced in Compact Climate-Friendly Electric Kitchen
By Sidney Beaumont
In both his life and career, José Garzon has become well-practiced in reinvention. A childhood in Guayaquil, Ecuador and the Galapagos, a front man in world-touring punk bands, and now a celebrated U.S. chef and restaurateur, his improbable journey has at many turns demonstrated a hunger for new challenges. Now in his first brick-and-mortar restaurant, Garzon has tackled another one—including adopting an all-electric commercial kitchen—in creating an impressive offering in a small, but bustling eatery in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.
Garzon and business partner Stefanie Hieber had co-developed pop-up projects together in the past, including Chifa Baby, Lola’s Supper Club, and Garzon Latinx Street Food. With their first permanent location, Bad Chancla, they have conceived what they call a “love letter to millennial immigrants and first gen Latinx Americans.” And their hard work and vision have paid off. Bad Chancla has received both local and national accolades, with Bon Appetit listing the restaurant as one of its most anticipated openings last year.
Bad Chancla’s story is part of the Building Decarbonization Coalition (BDC) video series, Kitchen Currents, which features restaurant owners who made a conscious decision to go electric. By highlighting restaurants and Chefluencers leading this effort, along with practical resources, it hopes to give chefs and restaurateurs direct insights into the opportunities—and challenges—of creating climate-friendly, state-of-the-art electric kitchens.
The video captures how Garzon and Hieber’s passions converged under the small roof on a sloped triangle block in the Capitol Hill district. The two met working in restaurants after culinary training, and a partnership was born. Garzon’s deep connection to the cuisine of his youth—and his travels as a musician with an adventurous taste for street food—along with Hieber’s interest in Pan-Latin food traditions, fueled their shared vision.
Although diminutive in size, Bad Chancla has an extensive menu with diverse, but unexpected, offerings, serving Latin American, bodega style sandwiches and rice bowls, reflecting their own Pan-American-Latinx take. Cultural representation has been their North star when formulating this concept, harnessing the energy and struggles of an immigrant growing up on tradition and adapting to life in the US. “Bad Chancla really represents for me all the food that kept me going as an immigrant here,” Garzon said.
Garzon’s nana, Lola—who he shadowed in the kitchen growing up in Ecuador and who provided the foundation for his knowledge of food—spurred his passion to share this heritage. But Bad Chancla is not rigidly hewing to any tradition. The menu includes classics like ropa vieja and picadillo beef sandwich with tomatoes, but also Puerto Rican, Dominican and Miami-inspired sandos, huevos con wiennies quesadillas, and their take on what they call the “fake” Cuban sandwich on a Hawaiian roll, to name a few. “We’re doing what the first generation does, but we also have our interpretation of items like grilled cheese and other American comfort food,” says Garzon. As their slogan puts it, this is “not your abuela’s (grandmother’s) cooking!”
The name Bad Chancla comes from the Latino folkway of mothers hurling a flipflop (chancla) at their kids to discipline them. But Garzon has nothing but fondness for the women who reared him and taught him to love—and express love through—cooking.
Although Garzon and Hieber had worked primarily in gas powered kitchens in the past, when they were conceiving and designing the space they encountered another option—electric induction—that seemed to be a more promising fit. Both the layout of the space and the potential renovation costs, especially building out an entire range hood and piping in gas, tipped the scale to an embrace of exclusively electric technology.
At the same time, they discovered the BDC’s Chefluencer program, and training courses, with its innovative electric cooking techniques. Although there were adjustments to this new approach, they have come to fully appreciate the efficiency and control of induction cooking. They love how it allows them to adjust the temperature more quickly and precisely than gas. Not to mention that eliminating the burning of fossil fuels inside the kitchen is a known health benefit, diminishing risk of childhood asthma and respiratory illnesses. And the way induction uses electromagnetism, rather than heat energy, means that energy goes directly into the cooking pan—resulting in a cooler kitchen.
Later becoming ambassadors in the BDC Chefluencers program, they are now a de facto case study on the opportunities and benefits of restaurant electrification, while also sharing experiences with other Chefluencers making this switch around the country and the world.
Garzon and Hieber have become proud and excited to be part of this wave of clean energy electrification that is making possible—and reinventing—the way we can more safely power our lives. According to ,the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), renewable energy accounted for a record 90.5%of power additions in the U.S. 2024, largely due to significant growth in solar and wind power. For those concerned about the planet, this parallel movement and thought leadership in the restaurant sector is a sign of real encouragement.
As Garzon makes clear in the video, this all connects to their goal of making Bad Chancla a vital neighborhood venue—they love the give and take of building relationships, sharing stories, and supporting the community. And part of these conversations is sharing their pride in being members of a cadre of “successful chef driven restaurants opening all electric and creating amazing venues and serving amazing food,” Garzon shared..
“Electric living is the future and we want to be a part of it. I think it will be the industry standard, the way the world is moving, the way history is moving, with fossil fuels and the environment,” says Hieber.
As the Kitchen Currents video captures, this spirit of excitement and passion are clearly evident in what they have made at Bad Chancla—and the tantalizing glimpses of their culinary offerings may be just enough to tempt a visit to experience their creations firsthand.
Watch this space for more releases of Kitchen Currents and please reach out if you’re interested in sharing your electrification or induction story, or learning more.
Kitchen Currents: Bad Chancla Video Producer/director/editor: Sidney Beaumont, RootedMedia.net | Director of Photography: Paul Mailman | Additional Cinematography: Seth Gwinn
Bad Chancla (badchancla.com): Wednesday – Saturday Noon to 8pm | 1525 Olive Way E, Capitol Hill, Seattle, WA | (425) 202-5840