Wednesday Night Fever
Bocados celebrates four years of fresh food and being the place for any self-respecting lesbian to be on Wednesday night
by Lauren Johnson

It’s a balmy winter evening in Montrose, and you are sitting out on the deck of a local restaurant in stylish metal patio chairs. Your server sets your plate in front of you: creamy seafood enchiladas stuffed with seafood you actually recognize, like shrimp and fresh crabmeat. The cheese melted on top of them is generously rich, and the accompanying refried beans are free of that greasy red stuff that makes you want to clean your tongue with a Brillo pad. Or perhaps on this day you have ordered snapper relleno, real red snapper (not some imitation fish like drum) stuffed with shrimp and spinach. Or perhaps the carnivore that you are has gotten the best of you, and you are hungrily devouring the last juicy bites of your carne guisada, beef tips slow-cooked in a heady tomato-based sauce studded with bay leaves and meltingly soft red peppers.

Quick now: Where are you?

What if I told you that it’s Wednesday night, and as you finish your tres leches, crowds of lesbians begin to descend upon the place? Tables are pushed back, speakers are pulled into place, and a dance floor is formed. More and more women arrive until they line the pastel walls, spill out onto the patio, and jam the bar three-bodies deep. The co-owner, a diminutive, attractive Hispanic woman with wavy brown hair, spins everything from salsa to house to good old ’70s disco music, and everybody dances like mad until the owners kick them all out around 1:30 in the morning.

Okay, you guessed it. Where else but Bocados?

Bocados has been an intricate part of our community almost since the moment it opened in December of 1997. In a town known for great Mexican food, Bocados has carved out its own niche by focusing its menu around the absolutely freshest seafood its owners can get their hands on. Guess what, folks: This ain’t Tex-Mex.

"I used to watch my mom working in her kitchen when I was a kid in North Houston," says Terry Flores, one of Bocados’ two lesbian owners, perched on a barstool early on a recent Wednesday night. "I remember everything she used to do. Although I never helped her as a kid–it’s only now that I’m grown up that I’ve become helpful!" Flores had always known that she would open her own restaurant someday. When Flores described her vision to college friend Lily Hernandez, the two became a restaurant team. "I’m the bean counter," cracks Hernandez, who is a CPA. "Every business needs one." More seriously, she adds, "The back office suits me; I’m the shy one of the two of us. Terry’s the one out there talking to the customers and doing the socializing."

With Flores watching over the front of the house and Hernandez keeping tabs on the books, Bocados had a strong start in its first year. "That was our biggest surprise," laughs Flores. "We expected the first year to be much harder."

And what about this Wednesday night phenomenon? Flores and Hernandez have to laugh when I ask how it all started. "It was just all our lesbian buddies, coming over to hang out. It started with about 10 or 15 women," Flores recalls. "Suddenly, before we knew it, it was 25, then 35, and the next thing I knew I was saying, ‘Hey, let’s get a DJ!’"

But DJs for hire were notoriously unreliable. So in her particular "let’s get it done" style, Flores parlayed her lifelong passion for music (she has a record collection of between 300 and 400 albums) into a new role for herself: Bocados’s staff disc jockey. "I told Lily, let’s just buy the equipment and I’ll do the work. It paid for itself in the first year. Easily."

As a DJ, Flores calmly works the soundboard on Wednesday nights while flashing disco balls and colored lights transform the serene homey restaurant space into a high-energy dance club. Local celebs like Sheryl Swopes and Annise Parker periodically show up to enjoy the scene. "What I like about Wednesdays is that we seem to get a good mix of people week to week," Terry says, and Lily nods agreement. "You’ll see one group in here one week, then not the next, but then back the week after that. It changes all the time."

Despite the buzz of Wednesday nights, Bocados is, first and foremost, an excellent place to eat. "It’s important to us to be very hands on, to keep our food simple, but to also keep things constantly changing so our customers will have something to look forward to. We like to be here, saying hi to people, calling them by name. And people like that, I think."

Help Bocados celebrate their fourth anniversary on Sunday, December 9, 2 p.m., with free food and beverages, and live entertainment by Tropi Cruw.

Carne Guisada

This is a recipe Terry learned from her mother, longtime Houston resident Rachel Flores. Serves 4—6.

5 lbs. beef tips
1 tsp. cumin
About 15 bay leaves
1 can whole peeled tomatoes (14 oz.)
8 oz. tomato sauce
Salt and pepper to taste

Brown the beef tips in a large stew pot. Add the cumin and salt and pepper. Add tomatoes and tomato sauce and stir, scraping up the brown bits on the bottom of the pan. Add the bay leaves and turn the heat to low. Cover and simmer for 25-30 minutes, or until meat is tender. If your sauce is too thick, you can add small amounts of beef stock or water to thin it, but use sparingly. Serve with rice and beans.