By now, the secret is out.
Is it a secret though? Considering how much I’ve hinted at this for the last 2 years?
The flights to Mexico, the cameras, the instagram stories of someone in our team shooting something or other? It has all led us to this point.
And believe me, the journey hasn’t been easy, not in the very least. And despite not having anything guaranteed or knowing whether or not this is going to work, the mere fact that once again we are about to go against the norm of how something is built, is truly what makes this next chapter of our journey all so familiar.
Look, when we built República we didn’t have a tenth of the experience and resources we have now. What we had was drive, intentionality, and a vision for what would one day be the greatest Mexico-forward concept. We lacked the things that typically make or break a business: capital, mentoring, and resources. And yet, here we are.
However you choose to define success, our story is right there with it.
With TODOS, we have a lot more resources than we do mentoring, and we have a lot more mentoring than we do capital… and yet despite that, we are about to create something that doesn’t currently exist and in the process of it change the industry for the better.
Let me make you uncomfortable, doubtful, or hopeful and run that back one more time:
We are about to create something that doesn’t currently exist and in the process of it change the industry for the better.
That’s it.
That is all that you need to know.
You don’t have to subscribe yet, but you should.
You don’t have to go and watch yet, but you will.
You don’t have to wait and see it to believe it, you’ll just have to believe it when you see it.
Con todo, menos con miedo.
Angel
—
What is TODOS Media:
A content production studio.
A community-centric media platform.
Original and relevant content created and/or told by our people.
More details:
To start, the platform will feature short-form programming by way of episodic micro-series(10-12 episodes, 2-3 minute long episodes).
It will be accompanied by editorial content including, essays, galleries, and curated travel guides.
Subscribe at /@watchtodos
Oaxaca, in a glass.
Agave, fire, time, and a tradition that goes deeper than most will ever see.
A spirit made for celebration; distilled with fruit, spice, and time, carrying the weight of tradition in every drop.
This is how it’s made.
Watch it now on Substack.
----
(watchtodos.substack.com/p/memorable)
Coffee has never been an afterthought around here. Never will be.
It’s part of the ritual. Part of the reason we open the doors every morning.
But a pourover changes everything.
14 grams.
210 ml out.
One cup at a time.
No giant brewer bullshit sitting around for an hour. No batch brew. No rushing.
Just hot water, aroma, temperature, attention, and somebody actually making your coffee with intention.
Same way we do everything else at República.
Is it scalable, practical, or a smart business move?
Probably not.
But that's not why you come here.🤷🏽♂️
Con todo. Menos con miedo.
You think you know Oaxaca?
You think you know the people, the culture, the spirits, the stories?
You think you understand what makes this place what it is?
We thought we did, until we didn't.
Memorable goes where the bigger shows refuse to go. The uncomfortable conversations. Gentrification. Cultural appropriation. Exploitation. Identity. Memory. The cost of turning culture into commodity.
All of it told through a beautifully cinematic docuseries built to challenge the way you see Oaxaca — and maybe the way you see yourself in relation to it.
Watch the first episode now at:
Right now at República, we’re serving jericallas.
A dessert from my childhood.
One tied to some of my earliest memories of hunger, access, embarrassment, and love.
Funny how certain dishes follow you your whole life.
For some people, it’ll just taste nostalgic.
For me, it tastes like childhood. Like wanting more. Like standing near a refrigerator I wasn’t supposed to open.
I wrote about that feeling in “The Key to the Refrigerator.”
Maybe that’s the beautiful thing about food.
Sometimes you spend your whole life learning how to turn memory into something you can finally share with other people.
Come by. Have dessert.
Then read the piece.
Or vise versa.
--
www.readbetweencourses com
About three years ago, I got asked to be part of one of those travel experiences. You know the ones. They find some Mexican chef with an accolade or two, a Latino last name, fly them out, give them a stipend, and have them guide a bunch of tourists through a cleaned-up, homogenized version of Oaxaca.
A version where everything feels a little safer.
A little more curated.
A little less real.
Less Oaxaca. More Disney’s Oaxaca.
Anyway, I turned it down.
Not really my thing.
Nowadays, I’m seeing a lot more people doing it. And hey, get your money, I guess. Maybe that makes me the worst businessman alive. I can live with that.
In the meantime, go watch Memorable.
First episode is free.
The other two? Y’all gotta pay for those.
Support the work. Get a paid subscription. We’ve got a lot more coming. Plus, we could use the money. Otherwise, don’t be surprised when that “curated Oaxaca experience for eight” email starts showing up from us too if this media company thing doesn’t work out.
Hot take: I’d like to believe we have the best mole negro in town.
Now, that’s the nicest way of saying I don’t agree with the way people categorize mole negro in this city. I have many opinions on that, but I’ll spare you.
The thing about mole negro; the thing I learned when I was fortunate enough to spend time with the people who make it, more specifically Doña Elvia and her son Jorge León at Alfonsina—is this:
Mole negro is memory burned into flavor.
The technique is not just built through repetition. It’s built through trust. Trusting that what you’re eating today is the closest thing to what has always been there.
Part of what makes mole negro so extraordinary is the lack of equipment, the lack of technology, and the way people learned to create something profound with whatever they had available to them.
When we make our mole negro, we try to honor those components. We burn ingredients to a char, almost the consistency of burned paper. Mole negro should live in balance; between bitterness and depth, smoke and flavor.
Chocolate-forward, nutty, and sweet has never really been my thing, especially when the chocolate lacks bitterness.
The balance comes from ash.
From char.
From spice routes and colonial influence.
From the hands that protected these recipes long before restaurants tried to simplify them.
This is our homage to mole negro.
- @smalltimegenius
And on the 25th day of April, the sun said: let there be squash blossoms for quesadillas.
Here’s the thing; usually you don’t see these until July. And when you do, people fight over them. We’re usually those people.
But today, walking through the farmers market like we do most Saturdays, there they were.
Flor de calabaza. Bright, delicate, impossible to ignore.
Some people treat them like garnish. Decoration.
To me, they taste like the season trying to get your attention.
So I bought as many as I could. Five dollars a bunch. Worth every penny.
As you can see from these pictures, as soon as we got back to the restaurant, the wondeful @hannahruthjoy began folding them into quesadillas; fresh masa, quesillo, onions, garlic, a little sautéed squash.
Served with salsa macha.
That’s it. One of the most perfect things the earth gives you, on a plate.
We have bout twelve of these today.
Come tomorrow… you might miss it.
I haven't paid myself in six years.
Half a million dollars of my own money. I live off the restaurants. I walk everywhere. My watch collection is mostly old Casios — half of them don't work, the alarms go off at random hours, no way to turn them off.
That's what I'm into.
Simple life. Big vision.
We hit 10,000 YouTube subscribers in 37 days. Then stepped away. Came back. Same quality. 100 views.
Lost a deal worth half a million. Covered it myself. Kept shooting.
Five shows. All of it real.
And what I know now — you don't own YouTube. You don't own Instagram. You build on someone else's land and they can take it back whenever they want.
So we stopped asking for permission and started building where the math actually works.
The full story is in my Substack.
Link in bio.
#TODOSMedia #BetweenCourses #IndependentFilm #Substack
Real talk.
I don’t know many people in this industry, let alone this city, doing this level of work and still keeping themselves right.
Restaurants.
Media.
Personal growth.
Relationships.
Clear head. Stay focused. Stay healthy.
Read. Write. Edit.
Run kitchens. Run a business. Build something bigger.
So many lanes, all moving at once.
And trying to stay sane through it; therapy, discipline, showing up again the next day— that’s where the real work lives.
This isn’t about República & Co. Not fully.
But if you’ve been paying attention, you already know.
This next stage, everything we’ve been building on the media side…that shit’s going to hit.
Someone told me the other day I’m the Greg Popovich of this industry.
I laughed at first. Then I sat with it.
If that’s the spirit, I’ll take it.
So pay attention.
Every day.
More work.
More stories.
More writing.
And if there’s someone out there pushing you and ourworking me in a way that I'm not, show them to me.
I’m still looking too.
Trust the process. Do the work.
Clear eyes. Full hearts.
(Can't lose).
