EXPLODE your tastebuds at burrito fresco

Main Street in Brockport is a unique strip that carries a quaint amount of entertainment for the local population and visitors alike. On the strip lies a small new restaurant named Burrito Fresco, owned by Steven Michael DeLorme and his wife Bitsy.

The restaurant opened within 30 days, a very quick start-up period regardless of the time of year. Opening at the end of the prior school year, the DeLormes planned to gain some footing by opening during a typically slow time in the restaurant season.

“The idea was to open when it was slow over the summer, but we bloomed instantly,” Steven DeLorme said. “The community has been amazing to us.

“The process started in April. We walked in the doors the last day of April and we opened June 1. It was a process. If I knew what I know now, I would’ve given myself the summer, but we did it.”

Steven DeLorme, 32, has been in the restaurant business for longer than some students at the College at Brockport have been alive. His father runs Rochester’s legendary Country Sweet, which has had several locations over the past couple of decades. Working in this environment gave him the aspirations and dream to open a business of his own.

“I have worked in the restaurant business since I was 9,” DeLorme said. “When I was old enough to reach the sink I started doing dishes, so I started there and never stopped.”

At Burrito Fresco, Steven Delorme is the owner and cook who, until two weeks ago, worked seven days a week. His wife Bitsy has a master’s degree in marketing and manages the business end of Burrito Fresco.

Interestingly enough, almost no advertising was done to promote the opening of the restaurant. Rather, Burrito Fresco took to the world of social media to befriend and tweet as many individuals as possible. A funny concept took on a life of its own when the Facebook page turned into more than just a time log for the overhaul process of Burrito Fresco. Now Burrito Fresco’s page regularly posts questions that can be quite hilarious and fun for people of all ages. For example, “How do you spell the word taco?”

“[The questions are] mostly for fun DeLorme said. We didn’t really advertise when we first opened the place,”  “All we did was have people follow us and we took pictures every day of the inside and the way we were changing it from Mythos. That’s the only way we advertised, so the way we continued that was to ask questions. So the word spread that we would give something away every day and it turned into something funny.”

To not check out Burrito Fresco’s Facebook page would be a loss of great deals and sometimes even free prizes. The best part of the “daily questions” are the quirky antics they bring to the restaurant.

“We would ask questions that were opinion questions,” Delorme said. “When people would come in to answer them we would give them a hard time.

“One time we asked, ‘What’s one plus one?’ Little kids came in and we gave them some free burritos and stuff.”

Burrito Fresco’s social media presence doesn’t end with Facebook. It also has a word of the day section on its Twitter account.

“We did ‘whack-a-mole’ [word of the day], but we had people pronounce the ‘h,’” DeLorme said. “So people would come in and say, ‘whack-a-mole.’ [without the ‘h’ in the pronunciation] We would say, ‘sorry.’ Then the person behind them would say, ‘who-whack-a-mole,’ with the proper pronunciation and we would give them 10 percent off or whatever.”

Burrito Fresco has an orginal menu with different types of sauces. The most popular sauce, DeLorme said, is the chipotle garlic. There is also a sauce named the “Green Flash,” which is a salsa verde that is pureed. Most originally named, for obvious reasons, is the “Zack Morris” sauce — the hottest sauce on the menu.

Not only does Burrito Fresco have an array of appetizers and entrée menu  items, it also carries a taste bud titillating dessert which I was treated to thanks to Steven DeLorme. I would describe it as a cinnamon-sugar dusted, apple-caramel filled fried empanada. It exceeds any average apple pie you will get from McDonald’s.

If you eat there and find your choices get repetitive, talk to one of the several regulars. They could help you discover a menu choice you might not have known about.

If you feel that you are someone who can tackle a large meal and are always looking for the next food challenge, look no further. An upgraded nine inch by nine inch burrito weighing in at five pounds, adding on two pounds from last year’s challenge, is a worthy competitor. The challenge will be held Saturdays starting next month. The person who finishes in the fastest time will receive their next meal for free and anyone who completes the challenge will win a Burrito Fresco drink koozie.