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Donnie Blais,
Rancho Relaxo,
300 College Street, Toronto, ON
By Gary Lipovetsky, President of MenuPalace.com
 Donnie Blais - owner and chef at quintessential downtown eatery Rancho Relaxo - has had quite the career in the music and restaurant industries. From his roots in the metal scene of the 1980s, Blais has gone on to open several successful restaurants and a catering company that's gotten rave reviews across the GTA. Rancho Relaxo on College Street, his first in this string of successes, serves up authentically delicious Mexican classics at a price that brings a steady stream of loyal followers from all over the area. Though Blais has new and exciting opportunities on his plate these days, he clearly has a soft spot for his original creation, and there's a good chance you'll catch him at Rancho Relaxo serving up mouth-watering food to his devoted fans.
MP: When did you open Rancho Relaxo, and what prompted you to do it? How has it grown or changed since then?
DB: We opened Rancho Relaxo 13 years ago, in 1998. Well, the business in general, we've grown with our community, we've always been pretty popular, but we discovered a resurgence with vegan, vegetarian food. It's great for couples where one is vegan and one eats meat. Plus, our catering has become a much bigger part of our business.
MP: You seem to have a pretty eclectic and storied background, working with the iconic Gasworks club in the 80's and managing rock bands. Has music influenced your restaurants, and Rancho Relaxo in particular?
DB: I started out booking metal bands for the club, and I think when I first started in restaurants there was definitely an advantage due to the amount of people I knew in the music industry who gave us a lot of support. Rancho Relaxo became a meeting place for a lot of bands, we still have bands meeting upstairs and coming down for food and drinks, and it's great to still be connected to that community.
MP: What is your connection to Mexico and to Mexican food? How did you learn to cook it so authentically?
DB: Well, I've always had a passion for Mexico. To this day, I spend a couple of months a years down in Mexico, and I love going back. We stop at the markets to check-out ingredients and to get new ideas for menu items. When I was managing bands, I always wanted a little Mexican place for the bands to eat at, and after a bit of an issue with finding a reliable cook at first, I decided to teach myself.
MP: Rancho Relaxo is a neighbourhood fixture in an area that has a lot of fixtures. How do you set your restaurant apart from your neighbours?
DB: We've developed such a loyal clientele over the years. I think our food has always maintained a really high standard, and people appreciate that. We're more of a destination; people come to the area specifically for us, not to just cruise around like some of the other downtown areas. There's been a lot of development, condo towers going in, stuff like that, which is great to build up a loyal client base. We've been fortunate. We've never really had to deal with a downturn in the business. When things were getting bad for the rest of the restaurant business, when other bigger restos were going under, we thrived because our price point was so low and our quality was so high.
MP: What is your best-selling dish, and what do you think makes it so popular?
DB: Probably the burritos. People love the the quantity and the quality, which you don't find in too many other places in the city. Also the enchiladas are excellent. Like I said, vegan dishes are becoming more and more popular, and lots of people are really appreciating that option, it's definitely broadened our customer base.
MP: On that note, what's your personal favourite dish?
DB: Oh, probably the enchiladas suisa: baked with green tomatillo salsa and cream, covered in cheese - they're absolutely delicious.
MP: In your opinion, what is the ideal dining experience, and how does Rancho Relaxo achieve that?
DB: First off, you look for the great ambiance. Then it's friendly staff, a decent wine selection, affordable appetizers and mains. If you can make it all the way to dessert, then lay it on!
MP: Has Rancho Relaxo ever hit any snags or bumps along the way? If so, how did you overcome them?
DB: We've had a couple of snags, but nothing too major. There was a problem a few years back with NOW Magazine mistakenly publishing our name in connection to a homophobic incident at another restaurant. It took a few issues for them to publish a correction, and we got a lot of hate mail, verbal attacks, that sort of thing. Our core clientele knew how open-minded and accepting we really were, but it scared away a lot of potential customers, which is never a good thing. We're proud to be part of a very liberal community, serving lots of students and LGBT folks, and we'd never do anything to jeopardize that. Another challenge was when the city was doing streetcar-track construction on College. We spent an entire summer with only one lane of traffic, which really hurt our business. The fact that we're still thriving after these problems is definitely a testament to the loyalty of our customers.
MP: If you could go back to the beginning of your career as a restauranteur, would you do anything differently?
DB: I don't know if I'd do anything differently. Heh, probably buy the building. If I'd known we'd be here for 13 years, that would have been a good idea.
MP: What do you think the future holds for Rancho Relaxo? Any changes coming?
DB: No, not too many changes coming down the line. I think we'll just stay the course, keep making great food for a low price. The catering part of the restaurant is really taking off, so right now we're looking to develop that side of things a little bit more, which is taking up a lot of our time. We'd like to re-open Rancho for lunch, right now we're only doing dinner, so when the catering settles down a bit, we'll definitely be looking at that.
MP: Thanks for your time.
DB: No problem, it was my pleasure!
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