Our Story

I grew up on Tex-Mex and some of the classic spots around the state like Casa Dominguez, Mia's, Herrera's in Dallas, Joe T.'s in Fort Worth, Ninfa's in Houston, Casa Del Rio in San Antonio. Our family did the Wednesday night Enchilada Special at El Fenix. I remember being nervous on how "hot" the hot sauce might be until I realized that was just the name us gringos gave salsa. Yeah, some was more spicy than others, but it was always delicious. My brother and I could go through a bag of tortilla chips and Pace Picante before the end of whatever syndicated sitcom was complete after school. And it was probably our most complete source of vegetables in our teenage diet. Of course, this was before Mexican food got fancy and sometimes the salsa was the best way to save an underwhelming combo plate. But now Mexican food means more to the public than a greasy spoon or cheap fast food. Whether you're serving up chips and salsa or topping off breakfast tacos, people demand better salsa.

My mother-in-law had taken up gardening in East Texas and had started making her own family recipe salsa and I started bringing more and more home with me after each visit. After taking most of her stock one time, I finally asked her to teach me to make it. Since she was a retired home economics teacher, she was kind enough to indulge (or wise enough to get me to quit stealing her salsa). I learned. I tweaked it here and there. I worked on my processes and I tested it on friends and neighbors, who kept coming back for more.

I’m sure you remember those commercials where the cowboys are enjoying chips and salsa and chili around the campfire. When all of a sudden, one of the cowboys exclaims that the salsa is made in "NEW YORK CITY!" and then another cowboy makes a warning of pending frontier justice. Well, ironically, that company has been bought by a company from New Jersey (pretty much the same thing to a Native Texan), but Red Dog is still made in our hometown and named after our loyal family dog, Red. We don't need to warn you of pending frontier justice because we believe you'll enjoy our salsa enough to know you don't want some mass produced condiment with some fancy ad campaign behind it.