Francisco ‘Poncho’ Portillo, chef owner of Green Chile House, bases his menu around hatch green chiles. Hatch chiles grow along the Rio Grande River in southern New Mexico, Hatch Valley. Basing your menu around hatch chiles isn’t anything new, but it is to the Salt Lake Valley. “Even McDonalds has hatch chiles on their menu in New Mexico,” Poncho explains. 

 

See, in New Mexico, even McDonalds and iHop have hatch chiles on their menu. “We don’t serve Mexican food, we serve New Mexican food,” Poncho clarifies.That’s why Green Chile House has burgers, alfredo and tacos on their menu. The menu is something specific to New Mexico, but it’s also an amalgamation of Mexican and American food. 

 

Poncho has cooked food his entire life, but as a career, it’s new. As a kid, it got him out of doing homework. “I’d cook dinner for the principal, for the teachers ... and she would do my homework.” The benefits of being a good cook. When he moved to Utah, back to his wife Callie’s hometown of Woods Cross, Poncho worked full time in construction, but opened up a food truck that he operated on the weekends. Make no mistake, although it comes with awesome benefits, it’s not easy being a chef.

 

He explains how difficult it is to operate a food truck. “It’s a lot more work than a restaurant, but also more money.” His big break came with traveling with the Food Truck League of Utah. He made a lot of connections there and it was working with the Food Truck League where he received the revelation of his birria dish.. “They don’t serve birria in New Mexico... But one week the League was doing a birria day. And I knew I had to braise it with hatch chiles.” 

 

Green Chile house buys sixteen thirty pound cases of hatch chiles a week. As Poncho is explaining this to me, his family comes barreling into the room, jovially arguing about who he loves more, his wife or each of his daughters. His kids are pulling on his arms and demanding his attention. Poncho doesn’t deny them. “The kids live here,” Callie gushes. Poncho may be the face of the restaurant, but the soul comes from all four of them. 

 

“It’s one of the only times I’ve ever been wrong,” Callie tells the story of the creation of their chicken sandwich. “We’re working in the food truck, and I tell Poncho that we need to get frozen chicken.” But Poncho wouldn’t allow it. It’s a lot more work, but the chicken needs to be fresh; they need to dredge every single sandwich. 

 

That’s their staple. The hatch chile chicken sandwich. It’s Poncho’s favorite, and he thinks it beats out every other New Mexican chicken sandwich.