January 2021 Feature: Joann Cornejo

Co-owner of Machete Beer House in National City, California.

Joann Cornejo has spent her entire 36 years of life in southeast San Diego. As the daughter of Mexican immigrants—her father from Guadalajara, her mother from Tijuana—she calls South Bay her home, her community, her heart and soul. National City’s racial makeup is approximately 63% Hispanic, nearly double that of San Diego county at large (32%), so when her husband Eddie Trejo wanted to open a bar to serve their neighborhood, the longtime teacher encouraged the leap.

“We wanted something to offer us, essentially,” Cornejo explains over the phone, since the pandemic quashed our ability to meet over a pint. “We wanted to stop leaving our neighborhood to go and drink beer, and we knew that there were other people like us.” Thus, Machete Beer House was born. 

Turns out, there were—and still are—quite a few people thirsty for that very thing. According to the Brewers Association’s demographic survey of craft beer employees, Hispanic/Latinx people are the second-largest group who work in craft beer, outnumbered only by white people. But the discrepancy between the two factions remains staggeringly large: white brewery owners outnumber Hispanic/Latinx owners around 44 to 1. Women fare only slightly better, falling just short of a quarter of all brewery owners. Cornejo, who identifies as a Latina, and more specifically Chicana, considers her background to be a benefit for those seeking representation. “Being a person that can reflect our customer base provides a sense of comfort to our new customers… we look and represent the people of our community,” she says. 

Machete Beer House opened its doors in February 2015, with the name serving as a tribute to both Cornejo and Trejo’s backgrounds. “[Machete] leads to our strong roots of being immigrants,” she says. “It’s a symbol of the agricultural revolution and working class. It kind of gives tribute to where our families come from, and where we stand in terms of our beliefs and work ethic.” The first months, like any nascent small business, demanded that work ethic to be in constant overdrive. Cornejo describes the lean times: “We worked our butts off financially to make it happen. We didn’t have any big loans, because neither of us had any kind of capital. We just hoped it worked, and it worked. We made it work.”

Studies ranging from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business to the Small Business Finance Fund show that despite Hispanic and/or Latinx businesses remaining the fastest growing segment of small business owners in the United States, they are disproportionately barred from traditional start-up finance options compared to white applicants. CalMatters reports that “According to the 2017 Small Business Credit Study by the Federal Reserve Banks, of applicants denied credit, 45% of Latino applicants were denied for insufficient credit history and 37% were denied for having too low a credit score… In comparison, white applicants were turned away at rates of 33% and 26% for the same reasons.”

Despite the initial barriers, Machete became and remains a hub of the National City community and San Diego beer scene at large. Its proximity to the international border with Mexico—just ten miles south—means travel between the two countries persists relatively fluidly, although during the pandemic, non-essential travel restrictions have stymied most pleasure crossings. But Machete has always focused on bringing the best local beer to its patrons, and the concept of “local” extends to Baja California. Mexican craft beer, or cerveza artesanal, has undergone a boom in recent years, and as the beer buyer for Machete, Cornejo has worked to satiate her customers’ desire for offerings from both sides of the border. Her foresight and dedication to her community has placed Machete ahead of the curve. “I think that breweries in particular are becoming a little bit more familiar with a new—and I say new as in ‘new to them’, not new for us—audience,” says Cornejo about the rise in Hispanic and Latinx craft beer consumers. 

But Cornejo knows that, despite Machete’s inclusive attitude, they’re not going to be for everyone. “I think that because we have been very vocal about where we stand in terms of political beliefs, we tend to get a like-minded audience,” she explains. From hosting fundraisers for the migrant caravan seeking asylum in the United States from Central America to being vocal supporters of Black Lives Matter or displaying a poster proclaiming “Donald Eres Un Pendejo” even before the 2016 election, Cornejo is proud of Machete’s stance on social justice and human rights. “People come and they gravitate towards that or we lose customers. And we’re okay with that.”

This commitment to human rights became exponentially more important to Cornejo during her very candid struggles with infertility and in vitro fertilization (IVF), which, after years of struggle and a miscarriage, culminated in the birth of their son in 2020. It was by tapping into her community and the roots that she’d cultivated there over her entire life that buoyed her through the dark times. Now, she balances her responsibilities at Machete, a full-time job teaching, and motherhood with an absolute devotion to time management. “It's really just about making every minute count,” Cornejo explains. “Now as a mom, I'm sitting there at 3 a.m. pumping or feeding my child and working on some marketing on some flyers I'm going to post for the next day, or emailing at three o'clock in the morning to see what kind of kegs I can get in—anything that needs to get done, that's what I'm doing. If I have any minute from work [teaching], I'm doing something for Machete.”

Cornejo hopes that the success she’s found might inspire other Chicanas or aspiring entrepreneurs from groups historically excluded from craft beer to pursue their own dreams. “Keep going—there’s room for you,” she implores. “Don’t give up. If you don’t work out for some company, you will work out for some other company. There’s room for us, absolutely.” 

Author note: Thank you SO MUCH for reading the first issue of Prohibitchin’ on Substack! Future features will come out the first Tuesday of every month, so be sure to subscribe, share, and stay tuned.

Prohibitchin' is made possible by Hopsbauer, a woman-owned hops brokerage company based in San Diego. Hopsbauer brings the best hops from around the world to craft breweries. Find out more by visiting Hopsbauer.com.