And then, in January 2014, as he prepared to open his coffee shop in a tiny plaza in Kansas City’s Brookside neighborhood, Sauza got another break: He was approved for DACA. He found an espresso machine at a yard sale and perfected a method of pan-roasting his beans on the stove-a time-consuming process but one that’s more aromatic and offers intense flavor. Sauza taught himself skills by watching YouTube videos. To his surprise, the customer offered him a loan. In time he managed to attract a couple of regulars and confided in one that he secretly longed to open his own coffee shop. New dishes pulled straight from his imagination, like drunken fish marinated in white wine and served with spicy Thai peppers. “I had never been in a kitchen before.” Yet he reveled in the chance to experiment and felt proud of what he was creating without any guidance: Fresh-baked focaccia and ciabatta. “That was the silliest thing I could do,” he says. A new Walmart was threatening to force the small business into the ground, so in a desperate attempt to save it, Sauza offered to take over the kitchen. ![]() Sauza quit on the spot and soon returned to his mother’s store. The beet burger on a charcoal bun at Pirate’s Bone Burgers. “I think it’s clear by the response that people do.” “It has definitely opened a lot of eyes as to whether or not people want more vegan food here,” Kansas City food writer April Fleming says. His deftly executed plant-based menu and determination to build a welcoming space set him apart. Here, in the high-traffic Crossroads neighborhood, Sauza slings juicy beet burgers and fries topped with melty cashew cheese. His scraggly beard and the colorful beanies he wears atop his closely cropped head seem right at home behind the counter of Pirate’s Bone Burgers, the vegan restaurant he opened in Kansas City, Missouri, earlier this year. With a tattoo wrapped around the back of his right hand and a colorful calavera and crossbones taking up most of the inside of his right forearm, Sauza certainly looks like a millennial chef. “If I was documented,” he says, “I’m 90 percent sure I would’ve taken my life a different way.” ![]() He might be making movies for a living, as he’d originally planned. Under other circumstances, he might be living in Boston instead of Kansas City. Zaid Renato Consuegra Sauza never dreamed of becoming a chef.
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