We recently connected with Tiara Darnell and have shared our conversation below.
Tiara, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?
Moving abroad to Morocco to do the Peace Corps was the single most transformative personal development experience of my life. The culture in Morocco is different in so many ways from that in the U.S. and even though I was there supported by the Peace Corps it was really my first opportunity at solo travel, in addition to being my first experience living long-term outside of the U.S. Over a two-year period (2012-2014) learning to navigate on my own in a culture and country and language not my own really built by self-esteem and confidence and helped me realize things I didn’t know about myself such as how powerful my critical thinking and problem solving skills are. How adaptable I am in challenging situations… A lot of these assets I didn’t realize I had, or didn’t think I had in abundance. Looking back, I felt this way frankly because in some cases there were instances throughout middle school and high school where I felt inferior intellectually to my white student counterparts. Society holds a lot against young Black children, and it’s easy to internalize this at. a young age. I’m grateful that my time in Morocco was a seismic course correction in my thinking about myself and what was and is possible for me moving forward in all aspects of my life.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I came to Mexico City clandestinely in March 2022 and worked remotely unbeknownst to my employer at the time for about 9 months before they laid off my entire team in January 2022. Fortunately, I had about 6 months of living expenses saved up which allowed me to take some time to figure out what I wanted to do next. One of my next moves was falling back on my love of cooking and doing Soul Food pop-ups off the roof of my apartment and inviting friends, especially those in the growing Black American and Black diasporic community in Mexico City. From those initial pop-ups I decided that opening the first Black-owned Soul Food restaurant is what I wanted to do because I wanted to make my own way, be my own boss, and not working for someone else at-will or being their collateral damage when times and budgets get tight.
I opened Blaxicocina in the Narvarte neighborhood of Mexico City during Black History Month, in February 2023. Blaxicocina is more than a restaurant, it’s a community hub for Black Americans living in or visiting Mexico City, and it is one of if not the only physical embodiment of Black American (from the U.S.) culture in the capital city of a country where slaves and formerly enslaved Black Americans escaped to to find a better life and pursuit of happines they were not afforded in the U.S. That legacy continues today in the form of the “blaxit” movement of which I am a part of: I left the U.S. and have no intention of moving back and have found an easier more joyful life in Mexico City, building my business and building Black culture from the ground up in this new environment.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Fearlessness – This isn’t to say that fear isn’t there, but I mean this in the sense of being unafraid to advance in the direction of your dreams and desires despite the fear of the unknown. I was definitely afraid to open a restaurant having never owned one before or even worked in one for any significant amount of time, but friends and family reminded me of all of the other ways I’d jumped into unknown opportunities and succeeded whether that success was truly successful or successful in the fact that it didn’t work out, but I learned, or grew, or went on to something better because of it.
Resilience – Resilience starts with how you prepare your mind and spirit to withstand and endure challenges, both the small and the ongoing, especially in a notoriously challenging business like the restaurant industry. But of course this applies to any industry. Resilience sometimes seems like a solitary effort. And in fact it can feel lonely to be withstanding something difficult like building a business on your own. But it doesn’t always have to be: beyond the self-work of preparing mentally and emotionally, resilience is also about assembling your personal board of directors, the people who know you, know your heart and know your vision and are going to be there to support you and likely even to jump into the trenches with you to lend their expertise to help you succeed and get from milestone to milestone. They’re there to fortify you on the days when resilience alone on your own is not enough.
Softness – Softness is absolutely giving yourself grace because you’re doing a lot and your’re doing great even though it doesn’t always feel like it because you’re deep in the mix and can’t see what others can see. Softness sometimes means having hard conversations and drawing hard boundaries around people and things that are sucking your energy instead of feeding it, filling up your cup; It also means allowing yourself time to rest including disconnecting from devices so you can hear your own thoughts and intuition over the noise of everyone and everything else. Softness is recognizing and honoring that you’re human and need time to pour into yourself so you can pour into everything else. Softness is healing so you can go hard when it’s time to go hard.
Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
I’m very interested in having students who are learning about the culinary arts, restaurant and hospitality management, and/or event planning or marketing to Spanish/English bilingual audiences at Blaxicocina. Beyond that, in general we’re always looking for up and coming DJs to play during service or various events, we love having chefs or anyone with a passion for food come in and do pop-ups or residencies, and we love having artists, musicians and other creatives use our space to bring new concepts and experiences to fans of Blaxicocina.
Contact Info:
- Website: blaxicocina.squarespace.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blaxicocina/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tmdarnell/
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@blaxicocinacdmx
