Salsa Joe's Has Something for Everyone
While the grand opening is still a few months away, Salsa Joe’s Tex-Mex Smokehouse in Belmont will hit the two-week mark Saturday. But while the opening has been soft, the response has been anything but. “We’ve been doing really, really well,” said owner and lead cook and creator Tom Strussion. “We’ve been open nearly two weeks and have had a lot more business than I thought this early.” Strussion considers his menu non-traditional Tex-Mex. There are Tex-Mex menu items to be sure. But there’s so much more, and the story of that weaves with Strussion’s own. A Bellaire native, Strussion spent seven years in the food mecca that is Texas, operating a TommyBoy Sausage Co. BBQ and Catering. Now in Texas, you can close your eyes, spin in a circle and point and find a Barbecue joint. It’s that popular and prevalent. There’s business aplenty. But when it came to catering, not everyone wanted barbecue for their events. “I did a lot of catering, and people would say ‘I’d love to use you, but we’re just not doing barbecue’ for their event,” Strussion said. “I'd say wait a minute; I can do Tex-Mex or Italian, and that changed the conversation and we didn’t lose the client. “I created something for them, and found I was doing just as much with the Italian and Tex-Mex as I was the barbecue.” After seven years, Strussion returned home to be closer to his father and family. Read the full article
