The Chile Pod began in retrospect with “The Chile in October” challenge. While reading an article in a local newspaper calling for all cooks to compete for the best Chile in a Farmington Chamber of Commerce promotion, I thought this would be a great family activity. 

So on Saturday October 1, 2011 my family and I started the day at 5:30 am loading all our ingredients into our car and heading to Berg Park to compete in our first Chile Cook Off. We competed four years in a row and took peoples choice all four years and 1st place one year for our Red Chile. 

In 2016, while scrolling through Facebook at work, a downtown building was listed for lease. As I had always wanted to do a “coffee shop or carryout type restaurant”, my husband and I decided to check it out. From our eyes, it was a perfect location had a kitchen, everything we needed to get started. Several people were interested in the building, but we had just so happened to click with the current tenant, Patty, and she spoke with the owner and forwarded his cell number to us. I texted him my ideas that night and he made arrangements to meet with us at 2pm the next day. I am specific to note this time because, when we showed up at two the next day, there were people that had been waiting outside to meet with him for several hours ahead of their scheduled time. 

The owner however, honored his arrangement with us and did not meet with these people ahead of us. The evening prior to showing up to that meeting, I contemplated if I had enough money to even start a business, I had no plan, no real money, nada. I was excited at the prospect though. I called two people that night, my mom who lived two hours away from me and my uncle who owned a restaurant in that same town, Cuba. “Would you be willing to quit your job and move to Farmington and come help me open a restaurant’? I ask my mom. Immediately she says yes! My uncle, I ask “Do you think I can do this and is this enough money to get started”? He tells me the ups and downs and says he thinks it is enough to get started. I start moving forward by transferring some 401K and savings to my checking just to be prepared. I show up to this meeting at 121 W Main St and there is a couple sitting outside in their car, I walk in and the owner is waiting for me. We talk and I am not ready to do the deal, I am scared and unsure but I also know there is someone in a car outside waiting to do this very thing, so I sign on the dotted line. That day was January 28, 2016. 

The next day, I walk through the Kitchen and realize how much work it needed! Something I did not see with my starstruck eyes before. Real fear set in, but it was “Do or Die”! We remodeled and opened our doors on March 3, 2016. It is important to note, that we were next door to “The Daily Times” newspaper and they did an article on us. We assumed it would be a buried in the back, a lifestyle section story that very few would see. To our surprise, it was a front page article! We attribute that as a part of our initial success as well as the fact that I am married the best cheerleader on the Western Hemisphere! My husband, Shannon Schultz worked at PNM and talked me up to everyone he came in contact with. While it was stressful and intimidating, to have to deliver on the quality he was promoting. 

I know that his grandiose praise of me and what he thought I could deliver jumpstarted what is now known as The Chile Pod! All that and of course, the best Red and Green Chile in the Four Corners. We have also competed and won “The Mac & Cheese Fest” of the Four Corners two years in a row. My husband and I are very blessed, to have had so much community support and the privilege to work with so many in our family.