Juan Sanchez Gonzalez picked the right state.
North Carolina loves its pork – shredded, chopped, pulled, with tomato or vinegar-based sauce. Gonzalez, who owns Carnitas Guanajuato, has his own long history of pork preparation, dating back to his childhood in the Mexican state of Guanajuato, where his father showed him how to prepare carnitas. The word literally means “little meats,” but in practice it’s pork slow-cooked until tender and served with rice, beans and tortillas or in tacos or burritos. Carnitas Guanajuato serves other meats and other dishes, but the pork is how Gonzalez started, and it’s still what he falls back on.
“All of the states have it, but each one has a different style. It’s like you talk here about barbecue,” said Gonzalez, 34. “It’s all in control of the heat … It’s not going to be hard, it’s going to be soft – but not too soft. I don’t have a way to explain it.”
He opened his first restaurant in Monroe in October 2008, then opened a second location near the intersection of East Independence Boulevard and North Sharon Amity Road in February. He won’t be there much longer, though; the building stands in the way of the upcoming Independence improvements project, and he has to be out by June. He said he’ll try to stay in east Charlotte. He’s used to moving. Gonzalez moved to North Carolina in 1994, initially near Raeford. Then he moved to Union County, working an assortment of jobs: roofer, poultry-plant worker. Beginning in 2001, he began preparing carnitas on his own and selling it at festivals and Latino soccer matches on the weekends. Sometimes he’d make money, sometimes not. But a year or two later, he decided he wanted to open a restaurant someday.
Now, he says, things are going well, even with the perilous state of the economy. Some people, he said, come in twice a week for the molé poblano, chicken or carnitas covered in a rich pepper-and-chocolate sauce. It’s considered the Mexican national dish.
‘Something my father taught me,” he said, “’If you want something, you stick with it.’”
- Profile written by Greg Lacour