Superica Wants To Show Cary Real Tex-Mex Cooking
Cary, NC – As people from Cary and around the Triangle await the coming Fenton development, they have one more business there to get excited about as Superica announced is bringing its authentic Tex-Mex cuisine to town.
Bringing Tex-Mex to the South
Superica, one of the many restaurants by chef and restauranteur Ford Fry, is opening in Cary’s Fenton development in the Eastern Gateway, where construction has not yet started. While Fry said he prefers older locations, the Fenton development appeals to him as a restaurant location.
“I’m excited about the development and the tenants. It’s almost more about this site than the specific region,” Fry said. “To get our foot in the door in this new area and to be attached to the food court, is great. I know the people involved in the development and they’ve done good work.”
There are only four Superica locations currently, including one in Charlotte, but all are in the South. Fry described the Tex-Mex food at Superica as the kind of food he grew up with in Texas and he wasn’t sure how it would go over with a Southern customer base.
“I questioned how it would go over with customers but they’ve liked it and I’ve enjoyed exposing people to it,” Fry said. “Many Mexican and Tex-Mex restaurants in the South are typically thrown together so it’s been an experience for them to see it how I grew up with it.”
Cooking From Memory
For Fry, he said the food at Superica is what he grew up eating and cooking and described the menus and recipes are cooking from his memory.
“I’m cooking from back when skirt steak was inexpensive, when that’s what I remembered eating,” he said. “Now it’s more expensive but we’re still using it because that’s what I cooked with.”
At Superica, Fry said the biggest difference local customers will notice between their Tex-Mex and other restaurants is the quality of food and the techniques used.
“They’re using lesser cuts of meat while we don’t know how to cook that way. I only know to make fresh, homemade tortillas,” he said. “People in the South may not be able to pinpoint why they like it better, but they do.”
Fry, who grew up in Texas and has most of his restaurants in Georgia, said he has always like the Triangle as a hub for the South and said Cary is growing so much it is on par with those three Triangle cities. But Fry also traveled to Cary enough to get a personal affinity for the area.
“I travel to Cary a lot with my son, who’s a tennis player,” Fry said. “I got my bearings for the whole area.”
Superica will have to wait for the construction on Fenton before it opens but Fry said he wants to make sure other businesses and offices are open there and Superica is not there by itself.
“I’ve seen stores open in a group and I’ve seen the early stragglers and the early stragglers don’t make it,” he said.
Story by Michael Papich. Photos by Johnny Autry.
