The Exchanges

Q So I'm curious about overall sort of financial situation. I mean, you know, on the one hand, you're grinding, you're trying to get to sustainability, but what about, and it was just the two of you who were, who were financing or funding this thing, you and Bill. Um, I mean, were there, do you remember any specific moments where you weren't sure you were going to make payroll?

A I mean, damn near every week, it felt like, um, you know, there were definitely weeks where I was like, holy cow, it's Wednesday, and I need, like, 3000 bucks to make payroll, and we've got a thousand in there. Like, how's this even gonna happen? And we'd get these little breaks, right? I'd get a call, and I'd have a catering for, like, a Thursday night to go cater fajitas for a riverboat, or, you know, there may not quite be enough in the bank, but I knew it was gonna be a great sunny weekend, and I'd cut the checks, hoping they didn't bounce, and You know, we'd get enough sales over the weekend to cover the float and, and not get in trouble, but it was real, real dicey at that point.

AI assessment note: “holy cow, it's Wednesday, and I need, like, 3000 bucks to make payroll”

Q And where did you, I mean, where did you sit? I, you set up on a corner in Austin and what just like, how does that work? Do you have to get a permit from the city? Like how can you just set it up anywhere?

A Yeah, see, definitely need a permit. They did have mobile vending permits back then, um, and we needed to have a commissary kitchen, so we figured that out, um, and I got a buddy who I knew owned a restaurant to help us use their kitchen to start, and, um, so yeah, we opened on south first, um, just south of downtown in this It's undeveloped lot. There was a guy that was selling snow cones there before that went out of business, um, who I had asked originally, and he didn't want to, uh, share the spot with me, and then I came back a month later, and the poor guy was packing his stuff up, and he gave me the landlord's number, and I called him, and, um, you know, came to find out that whole spot was in a floodplain, so you can't build on it, and so having a food truck there is actually, like, the perfect use for it.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, see, definitely need a permit. They did have mobile vending permits back then”

Q So how did you, I mean, your senior year of high school, or, you know, how did you start to Get jobs cooking. I mean, you weren't trained. You got, I think you eventually got a job at a golf club in Springfield, Virginia, where you were, uh, like cooking for, as a, you know, 18 year old. How, how did that, who showed you what to do?

A So I had a mentor. His name was Brian. He was the executive chef there. He kind of took me under his wing, but I don't know. I just, I fell in love with it. And, you know, I almost got fired, uh, because my knife skills were just horrible. And I was kind of just anxious in the kitchen. So I was always dropping stuff and kind of not getting it together. And he finally had one last stern talk with me and I, I turned it around and, um, and he started really working with me. And showing me things, and I can remember him giving me a lot of advice around just, hey, if you want to do a career in this, like, you know, your first five, 10 years, like, don't stay anywhere more than two years. Like, learn as much as you can. Like, get your butt out there working everywhere you can. Um, and, you know, learn, learn, learn. And so, it was really, really helpful.

AI assessment note: “So I had a mentor. His name was Brian. He was the executive chef there.”

Q And first of all, you call it Torchy's. What's, what's Torchy's? What does that mean?

A So that actually came from Bill. Um, we were struggling with the name, and he woke up one morning, called me super excited. He's like, dude, I got the name. Like, we gotta meet. Let's go get coffee. And he had remembered something that happened in the nineties where he probably had a little too much to drink one night and was at a late night Taco place that was here in Austin called Rosie's El Pastor. They were famous for their El Pastor tacos, and he sort of had this vision of this old Airstream trailer with neon torches with flames coming out of the Y, and he hadn't remembered that Memory until literally that night or that morning when he came and he said, I've got the name, and when he said it, we both looked at each other and like, that's it, that's the name, that should be Torchy's. Torchy's just felt like very right, very inspired, and like, no, this is it.

AI assessment note: “he sort of had this vision of this old Airstream trailer with neon torches”

Q away in taco trucks, and now you've got a brick and mortar location. Doesn't mean the grind is going to end. No. For sure it won't. But at this point, now having some investors involved, are you guys starting to articulate a vision of what you think this could be? Like, was it Was it too early to talk about multiple locations, or were you already talking about that possibility?

A A little yes and a little no. Our first goal was, we definitely, at first we kind of argued about, like, hey, do we just open a bunch of trailers because they're cheap, and we move them, and I was very much against that because I was like, hey, look, this is a great way to start, but it's not a good way to sustain. It's very weather-dependent, It's a lot of heavy lifting every day of like shipping food back and forth. And so I was really like, hey, we got to get a brick and mortar. I know it's expensive, but that's the way to do this. And it was a little bit of defense because our trailer location, we couldn't get more than a year lease. And every time the lease came up, our landlord wanted to double the rent. You know, he saw the lines and was like, I can make more money off these guys. And, uh, Farrell, being in real estate and construction, you know, had a real good eye for that, so we kind of put him in charge of, like, hey, go find us the next spot that's somewhere close to here that, but not too close, but that, like, we could still capture our customers, and so that's how we found our South First spot.

AI assessment note: “A little yes and a little no. Our first goal was, we definitely”

Q When you opened that location in Dallas, And then subsequent locations. How did you explain what the culture was to the team? Like, hey, everybody, we're opening this Torchy's. This is what Torchy's is, and you guys have to personify that, embody that. What, what, what was your explanation?

A So, uh, we had a handbook at that point. Um, you know, so some of that, some of our cultures and values were, were in that. We did about three weeks of training with those new employees. I was up there. All the partners were up there. We did lots of storytelling in terms of like where we started, the kind of things we'd been through. We get our folks super involved in In lots of tasting classes, um, and one of our big mantras is, if it's not damn good, don't serve it. And so, to really ingrain that culture of, like, hey, like, you know, it's okay to not have pico if your tomatoes aren't ripe. Like, just don't serve it, right? Like, a customer will understand, hey, we got a bad batch of tomatoes today, so we don't have pico, versus, hey, let's serve yellow tomatoes in our pico that, you know, It's hard and tastes like crap, you know, so, um, it's really about, um, getting that buy-in from your folks, being consistent with your values in terms of, you know, making sure that, that, that people understand what's important every day. Um, you know, we, we have what we call the, the, our winning formula, which is damn good food, damn good hospitality, and damn good shifts.

AI assessment note: “one of our big mantras is, if it's not damn good, don't serve it.”

Q All right, so here you are, uh, just starting out in life, um, you're sober, you've got it together, uh, and you're getting, obviously, some experience in the kitchen, um, but then I, I guess that you actually started attending some college classes, right? Like, what, what were you thinking that you would do at that point?

A So I, I almost went to, uh, well, I did, I went to a community college to start to become a counselor, and I thought maybe I'll be a substance abuse counselor, because I, I like I love helping people. But two months into my semester, I literally woke up in the middle of the night, and I was like, I had this thought of like, what the hell are you doing? Like, you need to be a chef. You need to be in restaurants. Don't worry about it. You're gonna be fine. And so I trusted that, and I woke, I woke up that morning and ran downstairs, and I was all excited and told my mother, and I said, I'm dropping out of school, and she said, the hell you're not, and, uh, you know, so, uh, she made me finish my semester, but, uh, we went and toured a bunch of culinary schools that next couple months, and I ended up at Johnson & Wales down in Miami.

AI assessment note: “I went to a community college to start to become a counselor”

Q it was a fine dining restaurant, basically. And you were not the head chef. You were, uh, you were in charge of saute, uh, and sauces, and making appetizers. So, uh, and this is like the mid-nineties when kitchens were, uh, Not gentle places. I mean, today, everything's, everything's on TikTok and Instagram, so chefs have to be on there on guard, but, uh, what was the kitchen like there?

A Uh, it was rough, uh, as actually while I was still in school when I worked at Mark's place, um, it was before I graduated, um, super rough. I can remember dodging many a saute pans flying at my head, um, and, uh, hot, Uh, spatulas of pasta water getting thrown at you too. Um, yeah, it was, it was rough. Lots of yelling, lots of screaming. There was a lot of, you know, getting your ass handed to you, if you will, um, in the kitchen. Um, and just super intense, but it was a great learning experience. Like, our menu changed every single day, and we were using ingredients from all over Latin America and the world. Um, and I can just, you know, remember, like, holy cow, like, I didn't know you could do this stuff with truffles, or salsify root, or real hearts of palm, or just different things we did, so it was pretty, pretty impressive menu we had there.

AI assessment note: “it was rough... I can remember dodging many a saute pans flying at my head”

Q And so did you, did you know these people who, who were interested? Like, were they friends?

A Bill knew them. Uh, he had done business with them. Uh, so Farrell was a builder, so he built a lot of houses in Austin, and they had a relationship because they would work together Uh, Bill would do the landscape, and, and Farrell would do the house building, so they had worked together quite a bit, and, uh, we knew that we were gonna have to raise money to help open the second trailer, because we were all tapped at that point, and so we brought Farrell on and showed him the finances and what we were doing. Had him come try the food, and he was just blown away. He's like, man, I've never had tacos like this, like, holy crap. And his wife, Rebecca, thought he was nuts. But they were sort of serial entrepreneurs, right? And so they kind of knew the game, so. Having someone on the team that like knew about business that could, you know, help navigate some of the things that I was still learning on the fly was really helpful to have them kind of on the team and, and to be able to, you know, help finance the second trailer. So, um, and we took some of that money to kind of help just hadn't had a paycheck yet. Right. And, uh, so I took a little bit of that cash and just kind of like kept my house from getting foreclosed on and got Caught up a little bit on some bills.

AI assessment note: “Bill knew them. Uh, he had done business with them.”

Q mean, you had, how are you coming up with different, like, you know, for example, I don't know, a taco with, um, like just the things that you would add to the taco. Like, you know, you've got a taco with carnitas, teriyaki sauce, bacon, corn relish, cotija cheese. I mean, A lot of different cultures and flavors blended into that thing. How would you come up with those ideas?

A Very early on, me and Bill agreed, like, hey, we wouldn't do anything unless it came from an inspired place, which might sound a little hokey, but sometimes that meant that, like, it might take you a while to, like, come up with something because it didn't feel very authentic. And what I mean by that was, It would be anything from, hey, I'm in the grocery store, and I see an ingredient like a miso paste, and it sparks an idea of like, ooh, I've had that with sea bass, and what if I did this, and then, and then how would I format that in a taco? And what I've found is when I've allowed myself that space and time to do that, that like, typically, the stuff that wins, I nail on the first recipe. Um, there's not a lot of, like, back and forth and testing and this and that. It's like, you have that idea, that inspiration, you go in the kitchen, and it all just kind of works and works out perfect.

AI assessment note: “I'm in the grocery store, and I see an ingredient like a miso paste”

Q Pizza Kitchen. He was an executive at Texas Roadhouse, a guy named G.J. Hart. Um, were you, I mean, clearly you, you did. You stepped down, and you took on a different role, but Uh, were you okay with that decision? Were you relieved? Did you feel like, oh, I really don't want to do this? Or were you like, I can't believe they don't trust me to do this?

A No, that, actually, the way that went down was, um, I was ready for a break, um, and I think the, the five of us We're kind of at this point of where we've done what we've done, we've done an amazing job, but like, what if somebody professional came in that's done this before, that's grown a company, you know, two, three, 400 units, that knows what that looks like, what could they bring to the table that could add value? And it was really a group decision, and there wasn't really In this new phase, like, it was going to be hard for me or some of my other partners to, you know, one of us to sort of rise above everyone else. And we also knew that, like, hey, even though I was sort of running things, that, like, we were still very democratic in how we made decisions, you know. It wasn't like I was the boss of everyone. And so.

AI assessment note: “I was ready for a break, um, and I think the, the five of us”

Q Was that, uh, did you feel like there were just too many people, they'd overhired, or, or was it more of a quality thing?

A We were definitely over, we just had way too much head count for what we needed, you know, and I remember kind of looking at the, you know, at the business kind of going like, what are all these people doing, you know, and, uh, just, uh, And just spending a lot of money that, like, we didn't have, really, to be spending, um, even at that point, even being as big as we were, um, and, um, it just, it was time to, like, get back and focus on what do we do? We, we serve damn good food, we give damn good hospitality, and we run damn good shifts, right? Like, what's the core part of our business, um, that, Got us to the dance. So, really took a step back and really focused back in on, you know, our operations, and, like, now if we go open a new restaurant, I always make sure there's at least one internal hire that's a manager in that restaurant, versus just everyone being new from outside.

AI assessment note: “We were definitely over, we just had way too much head count for what we needed”

Q Is it inspected by the, by the food, you know, whatever, is it, is, is it safe?

A Right, yeah. Now, the one thing I had going for me was we were on the right side of South First, so all the morning traffic going to downtown was passing right by our trailer, and so we were perfect for breakfast tacos. The question was, how do you get them to Turn in there in the first place, and so I learned real quick, like, how to do grassroots marketing, so I had a red Vespa, and I would make chips and salsa, because it was cheap, and print out a ton of menus, and I would go hit every Tom, Dick, and Harry, dentist office, office, office, um, you know, tire shop, Lube place, salon, wherever they'd let me in, and I'd go hand out samples of chips and salsa, give them my menu. Um, and we started delivering very early on.

AI assessment note: “The question was, how do you get them to Turn in there”