Walking up to Ma Cualli is a grand sight. The entire front of the restaurant is covered by full length glass walls, exposing the entire restaurant before guests step foot in the space – the warm hanging rope lights, the minimalist, but comforting wood furniture, the full service bar with suspended displays and the staff bustling around, ensuring every guest was attended to.
Once we walked in, my party and I were greeted by Mario Solorio, the main owner of Ma Cualli, along with his family – all of it. But the story of such an interesting staffing choice is a long one.
The Solorio’s have moved around quite a lot in the last 20 years, calling many places home such as California, Colorado, New Mexico, North Dakota and ultimately Rapid City, South Dakota.
“We were, at first, working for the restaurant to be in New Mexico,” Solorio said. “We were about eighty percent done with it down there, but we came to Rapid City to visit and we fell in love. We were here for a couple days…We just loved it, so we brought the whole family, the kiddos, everyone. We told them all, ‘We’re moving here, we’re moving here, we like it!’”
Sparked by inspiration, curiosity and hope, Ma Cualli is now almost entirely staffed by the Solorios’ immediate and extended family.
“I wasn’t expecting anything like this,” said Jose Herrera, a partial owner and son-in-law of the Solorio’s. “My only hesitation was my parents back home in New Mexico. Other than that, I had to think of my wife and my little boy, and what would be the best for our future. When [the Solorio’s] told me [to come with them], I was okay with it and it was a risk I was willing to take. Either it goes good or it goes bad. If it goes good, great. If it goes bad, then I could always just go back to what I was doing.”
Herrera wasn’t the only one who came from a job that required a change in perspective.
“Most of our staff came from a bunch of different jobs,” Herrera said. “Some were at Dairy Queens, others were doing manual labor and some were in office jobs. They came from everywhere to make this happen. It’s been cool to watch them learn how to work in a restaurant.”
And learn how to work in a restaurant they did. Ma Cualli takes traditional Mexican food to another level of class and comfort. Every single staff member inside the restaurant knew exactly what to do and how they should be doing it. The servers were friendly and every single chair, table, counter and tile in the restaurant was dust-free and spotlessly clean. And the food was absolutely incredible.
“All of our employees catch on really fast,” Herrera said. “They struggle just like when anyone starts a new job, but we try our best to make sure that they can do things well. You can see that improvement, in serving, cooking, everything. We are also big on cleaning… We want [guests] to come into a clean environment, and that starts with us and our employees.”
To inspire this type of commitment in employees, such a degree of motivation and determination takes a lot of work, but the management team at Ma Cualli takes a casual approach and brings their family element into their methods.
“We motivate our employees by giving them responsibility,” Solorio said. “We tell them, ‘You are old enough. You guys know better than to not do things that need to be done. Later, years from now, you’ll have to do it by yourself, but now, if you need anything, any help, we will be there for you.’”
When it comes to accuracy, the Ma Cualli team has streamlined the learning process for that as well.
“We give our new staff a certain amount of time to learn our drinks and food,” said Solorio. “This was [Jose’s] first time serving in his life, so he knows exactly how long it should take for a server to learn these things. If they haven’t learned by that time, we try to make sure to work with them, or if they make a mistake, make sure they’re okay. [We] ask them what’s going on and if they’re okay. We watch them on everything, every plate, every drink to make sure that everyone is one-hundred percent sure on what they’re taking out. If they’re not sure, they can ask anyone around them. We use a lot of teamwork.”
Their teamwork and work ethic has taken them far, but the Ma Cualli team has another strong factor that motivates them to continue to produce the quality product and experience everyone that walks into their restaurant can see: faith.
“Behind everything is eighteen years of ups and downs,” Solorio said. “But we said that we were going to put it in God’s hands for this dream to go on. To decide if [the restaurant] is going to be a blessing for us; a blessing for our family. If it’s not going to be a blessing for us, then that’s God’s decision to close those doors… But that doesn’t seem like the case and we try to let the kids know that too.”
This faith and commitment to long-lasting, generational quality has led the Ma Cualli team to take every step they can to ensure everything is as great as it possibly can be.
“One thing that we do is we taste everything,” Solorio said. “If there’s something that’s not as good as it could be, we change it… [For example,] our corn chips. We’ve gone through so many suppliers. Everything can impact the way it tastes, kind of like tequila. The soil, the water, the weather. We finally found the ones we like, but if we find some that we like better one day, it would be a quick decision to make sure that we are serving those ones instead.”
The Solorio’s seem to have made the correct decision for their restaurant’s location.
“The one thing I want to make sure everyone knows is that we are so grateful for the Rapid City community,” Solorio said. “We couldn’t have done it if they weren’t coming in and being so welcoming to us. We really appreciate them and what they’ve done for Ma Cualli.”
The night began with a grand scene. An entire table filled with steaming entrees and colorful drinks, as well as the wonderful Nora making Ma Cualli’s signature table-side guacamole.
The first dish I tried was the pork tamal and cheese chile relleno. The chile relleno was made with one of the largest poblano peppers I have seen in my life, roasted to a perfect point that brought out the sweetness of the flesh. It was filled with the soft, savory, melt-in-your-mouth egg batter that chile relleno is famous for and topped with a generous helping of melted cheese along with a slightly spicy red sauce poured along the length of the pepper. The pork tamal was well seasoned and had a perfect pork-to-masa ratio that didn’t leave the meat or the masa dry.
The grilled chicken salad was served with avocado, lettuce, cheese and house-made pico de gallo. Our next dish was the owner-recommended Ma Cualli Special. This dish featured shrimp and chicken tossed with a poblano crema and cheese, along with an assortment of squash, both zucchini and yellow squash. These proteins and vegetables were served with avocado and rice.
The carne asada was served on a lone plate, with an accompanying side of rice, beans and crema. It was tender, so tender it almost didn’t require a knife. It was beautifully seasoned, with cumin being the main spice I could pick up. Many of our guests were fighting over who got the bigger slice of the meat.
The taco flight was a tray filled with nine different, delicious tacos. They featured three sets of Ma Cualli’s individual shrimp, walleye and rib-eye tacos. The walleye and shrimp were incredibly fresh tasting and were accompanied by a sweet and spicy chipotle crema, along with cabbage and curtido, a cabbage relish.
The cazuela was a sight to behold with a steaming bowl filled to the brim with skirt steak, chicken, pork chop, chorizo, queso asadero, onion, poblano peppers, chiles toreados (roasted peppers) and roasted nopales (cactus). All of these were swimming in a flavorful frijoles charros, a soup commonly served with ample amounts of proteins and traditional Mexican spices.
Along with the unmatchable atmosphere and customer service, Ma Cualli cannot be beat in my book. The quality and taste of their dishes matches that and allows for a perfectly well-rounded service that keeps patrons coming, again and again. This includes myself, as this experience bought Ma Cualli a brand-new repeat customer.
