Running restaurants family-style

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”

So said the King of England, in William Shakespeare’s historical play “Henry V,” written in 1599. In that utterance, King Henry encouraged his troops to keep up their spirits through camaraderie as they battled the French army.

There’s another band of brothers in Sonoma County today, taking on the challenges of owning and operating a restaurant. Who couldn’t use some reliable support in business, especially after these past years of pandemic upheaval?

Several restaurateurs are taking the idea literally, teaming up with their blood brothers to run eateries. That includes Cancún Mexican Restaurant, Tacos al Carbón, Tacos El Paisa and Tacos Tijuana, all in Santa Rosa; Taqueria El Paisa in Rohnert Park; and Mi Tejas Tacos in Cotati.

Now we welcome another Mexican restaurant to the group — Pezcow in Windsor, owned by siblings Damián and Luis Zúñiga. It debuted last September and built on another level of brotherhood: Damián previously worked with entrepreneurial brothers Octavio and Pedro Diaz at several of their restaurants across the Bay Area.

The Diaz collection includes Agave Restaurant and Tequila Bar, El Farolito and Casa del Mole, all in Healdsburg; and El Gallo Negro in Windsor, plus restaurants in the East Bay, a bottled sauce company called Mole Diaz Bros. and interest in the Mitote Food Park under development in Roseland. (The Zúñigas, by the way, also own the Lucha Sabina food truck, parked Thursday through Monday at Mitote).

Brotherhood

For most of the brother duos, working together didn’t require a second thought. Miguel Canseco, 43, and Sergio Canseco, 47, own Tacos El Paisa, Taqueria El Paisa and Mi Tejas Tacos, as well as Toluco Mexican Kitchen in Palo Alto.

“Making tacos is a family tradition for the Canseco brothers,” said Miguel. “Our father had the only taco stand in our hometown, Tejas de Morelos in Oaxaca. Jorge Canseco, best known as Don Jorge, is a very famous taco chef there, and Sergio, I worked together with him since we were little kids.”

After immigrating to the United States as teenagers, the brothers started a catering business, making tacos for weddings and quinceañeras. Today they employ more than 50 workers and have expanded into popular regional specialties like quesabirria (birria beef and cheese folded into a fried tortilla with consommé for dipping) and tlayudas (an Oaxacan specialty of a large, thin, crunchy tortilla mounded with refried beans, asiento pork lard, lettuce, avocado, meat, queso Oaxaca and salsa). Customers include Latinos but also people of every culture.

“I feel that California gringos have the Mexican food code in their system,” Miguel teased. “Really, though, everyone really appreciates our mole and is impressed by how labor-intensive this dish is.”

Edwin Hernandez Garcia, 24, and Alfredo Hernandez Garcia, 27, opened their Tacos Tijuana with a few other partners in Santa Rosa last summer. The manager and the cook, respectively, came to Sonoma County in 2012 with the hope of saving enough money to build “a big white house” for their mother.

“We haven’t bought the house, but we have saved enough for the paint,” Edwin joked.

Edwin had worked for nearly a decade making tacos for many restaurants and food trucks in Santa Rosa, and when the opportunity came up to be part of something of his own, he reached to his “best friend” to help him — his brother.

“It was hard to convince him to leave his stable job and join me, but I know all his secrets,” Edwin said. “I blackmailed him, ha! Honestly, though, it’s nice to work with my brother because we both have the same dream and are saving money for the same goal.”

Reception has been very good for their authentic dishes, like their bestselling CompaJack burrito stuffed with cabeza meat made from an entire cow’s head and slow-roasted until it’s so tender it falls away from the skull. Then the juicy meat is braised, steamed and shredded.

“Sometimes (first-time diners) blink their eyes when they learn what lengua (roasted tongue) or tripa (boiled and grilled intestines) are, but they almost always tell us it was delicious,” Edwin said, adding that the kitchen also excels in vegetarian and vegan dishes.

Things can get frictional now and then, as he and Alfredo are also roommates. But over time, they have found a stopgap for potential quarrels spiraling too high.

“When we don’t agree on something, we just flip a coin,” Edwin said.

Partners and brothers Moises Ramirez, 38, and Jorge Rodriguez, 33, keep things calm but split duties between their two Santa Rosa restaurants. Ramirez is in charge of Tacos al Carbón, and Jorge is in charge of Cancun.

They had worked together in restaurants in their hometown of Oaxaca. They came to the U.S. planning to work, earn money and return home, but they opened their own shops here instead.

Customers particularly love their chilaquiles, seafood and micheladas (beer with spiced tomato juice, lime and chiles), Ramirez noted. More non-Latinos are exploring regional favorites like the variety of aguachiles (raw shrimp “cooked” in liquid lime juice with chiles and extras like cucumber, mango or avocado), he added.

“Surprisingly, less and less people ask us now if the salsa is spicy,” he said.

Next up, the brothers plan to open La Tequilas Restaurant in Cloverdale, working there together.

“Hopefully, we don’t kill each other,” Ramirez said.

Pezcow

Since they were teens, Pezcow owners Damián and Luis Zúñiga have worked at Diaz-owned restaurants. They took over the space that formerly was the Diaz restaurant Tu Mole Madre until pandemic pressures forced its closure last August.

The men come from Guanajuato, in central Mexico. Even so, they celebrate a good amount of seafood in their cuisine, all served in a dramatic setting of pretty pottery displays, wood and metal wall sculptures, heavy wood furniture and a gorgeously tiled open kitchen with a tiled wood-burning oven.

Many dishes are fanciful presentations, such as the eye-catching and mouthwatering Piña Rellena ($25). A half pineapple is partly scooped out and the fruit chopped, then the shell is filled with fish and shrimp and sauteed with tomato, onion and cilantro, topped with lots of chihuahua cheese and broiled golden gooey. A side of rice and chopped lettuce-cucumber-tomato-avocado salad refreshes between forkfuls of the rich dish.

Whole deep-fried tilapia also arrives theatrically, served with its head on and eyes wide-open in a shocked look — sorry, fish, but you are delicious, with your moist, flaky meat and spicy kick of diabla sauce ($21).

Molcajete is downright stunning, the volcanic rock bowl piled ridiculously high with crab legs, scallops, shrimp, octopus and mussels layered with broiled panella cheese, onions and cactus pads in a savory, bubbling salsa stew ($29 and easily enough to serve two).

For savory comfort, Carnes en Su Jugo is a Jalisco-style classic of rich beef consommé loaded with steak and bacon and beans and garnished with cebollas chambray onions, cilantro and a whole chile ($19).

Then there’s the Nayarit-style specialty of Camarones a la Momia, sometimes called “mummy shrimp” for its full body wrapping in bacon. The shellfish gets even more indulgent with a stuffing of cream cheese and cheddar ($22).

Specials also salute regional recipes, like a massive roast pork chop smothered in homemade pipián, an ancient Aztec-Mayan mole made with pureed greens thickened with ground pumpkin seeds.

Part of keeping things peaceful comes through division of labor, Damián said. He spends a lot of time with the food truck while Luis handles the Pezcow kitchen.

Carey Sweet is a Sebastopol-based food and restaurant writer. Read her restaurant reviews every other week in Sonoma Life. Contact her at carey@careysweet.com.