Today we’d like to introduce you to Alex Garcia.
Hi Alex, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Madre Garcia’s is an homage to my mother, who raised me as a single mom. She was the funniest, strongest, best person I ever knew who absolutely loved entertaining. And since we couldn’t afford to travel back to Puerto Rico, she brought Puerto Rico home for me and for all our friends. The #1 way she could share our culture was in the kitchen, passing down our family’s recipes and the stories behind them. At holiday parties, friends and neighbors would rave about her Pernil – Puerto Rico’s iconic pork dish, made by stuffing and marinating a whole pork shoulder in garlic and spices and slow-roasting it until it’s fall-apart tender and deeply flavorful. Seeing how food brought people together planted a seed in me early on and I knew someday I wanted to share our family’s recipes with the world.
In my 20s, I began taking steps to pursue that dream and almost purchased a food truck, but life threw me some curve balls that made me put things on hold. Later, I met my wife and after we bought our first house and began having children, the dream of Madre Garcia’s slowly drifted into the background. At that point, I had pretty much resigned myself to waiting until our kids graduated high school to pursue the dream again. But Pernil remained a staple at our holiday parties. A few years ago, at a Christmas gathering, a neighbor pulled me aside and said, “That’s the best pork I’ve ever had. You can’t wait 15 years to chase this dream. If you wait, you’ll just find five more reasons not to.” People have said things like that to me in the past, but I really took it to heart as he was a successful entrepreneur who grew up in the restaurant business. With my wife’s blessing, I went back into the kitchen. Over the next 12 months, I obsessively refined my family’s recipes, and I realized that sandwiches were the perfect way to bring our flavors to the world. During that time, I broke down every ingredient of the Cuban sandwich and rebuilt it with intention. Additionally, I made multiple trips to South Florida to study some of the best sandwich shops around. I like to say Madre Garcia’s blends their best techniques with my family’s traditions, creating a Cuban sandwich you won’t find anywhere else. Once the menu felt right, we launched at local farmers markets and pop-ups in 2024 to test the concept. The response exceeded anything I imagined, but pop-up life was starting to take a toll on our household. At the end of that year, my wife gave me an ultimatum: Go all-in on Madre Garcia’s, or stick with my corporate 9-to-5. After 19 years in the corporate world, I chose the dream. It was terrifying to leave the comfort of a steady job, but it gave me the bandwidth to fully commit. In 2025, we more than doubled our sales which confirmed that the leap of faith was worth it. Today, we’re searching for the right brick-and-mortar location to bring Madre Garcia’s to life full-time.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
There have been some bumps in the road. About 15 years ago, when I was 27 and just beginning to take steps toward starting a food truck, my mom suffered a massive stroke. At that point, I put everything on hold and moved home to become her primary caregiver. It wasn’t a detour I was expecting, and definitely not one I was prepared for as I struggled during that time with balancing my career, being her primary caregiver, and everything in between. That season of life reshaped me. I saw firsthand how fragile life can be and how quickly plans can change. It taught me not to take time or people, for granted. I learned resilience in a way you can’t from a textbook. I also experienced the power of community. Friends and neighbors stepped up in ways that still humble me to this day. During the hardest chapter of my life, I saw what selflessness really looks like. Madre Garcia’s exists because of those lessons and it’s why it’s not just a sandwich pop-up – it’s a tribute to my mom, to sacrifice, to community, and to the belief that when life gives you a detour, you can still find your way back to the dream.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am most proud of our Cubano sandwich, which is our signature sandwich. I dedicated a year of my life to trying to perfect it and you will not find another one in Atlanta like it.
My mother’s pork shoulder Pernil is the star of the show on our Cubano sandwich. We stuff pork shoulders with multiple heads of garlic and Latin spices, smoke them for 6 hours and slow-cook them overnight. We cure our ham in-house over 7 days and slow-roast it in the oven. Layered in the sandwich are also our house-made garlicky dill pickles and our house-made “Poncho” peppers, named after my grandfather who used to grow the Hungarian wax peppers in his garden and share them with all his friends in the neighborhood. We layer all of the ingredients on the sandwich in a way to create balance with the salt, fat, acid, heat formula in mind. Lastly, our sandwiches come with a side of our amazing Gigi Sauce which is a house-made cilantro, garlic, and lime aioli. The sauce is a family recipe that my mother-in-law aka ‘Gigi’ has perfected. We were trying to come up with a name for it one night and my kids yelled out “Gigi Sauce’’ which just sounded perfect. While the Cubano is our signature sandwich, we also offer a Vegano Cubano(V) and a Vaca Frita sandwich that we describe as a “Latin Philly Cheesesteak” and they have both developed a cult following.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
Risk is always part of building something meaningful. But I don’t believe in reckless risk as much as I believe in calculated risk. Leaving a 19-year corporate career was one of the biggest risks my family and I have ever taken. Walking away from stability, benefits, and a predictable income is not something you do lightly (especially when 90% of restaurants fail.). But quitting my job was not an impulsive decision. It was a two-year process. Before we ever sold our first sandwich in 2024, I spent a full year researching ingredients, refining techniques, testing flavor profiles, and obsessing over the details. Once the menu felt right, I launched slowly at local farmers markets and pop-ups to test the concept. It was only after I had a year of consistent sales and other positive feedback that I felt we had proof of concept, which made it easier to digest walking away from my corporate job in 2025. To me, risk isn’t about jumping blindly. It’s about reducing uncertainty through preparation, execution, and analysis. And the thing that makes it all possible is knowing the reward, getting to share my culture, my family and my food with my community and watching the joy it brings.
Pricing:
- Cubano Sandwich = $16
- Vaca Frita Sandwich = $18
- Vegano Cubano(V) = $15
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.madregarcias.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madregarcias/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61578720719650
