[00:00:10] Ray Latif: Hey folks, I'm Ray Latif and you're listening to the number one podcast for the food and beverage industry, Taste Radio. This episode features an interview with Darioo Wolos, who is the founder and CEO of fast-growing restaurant chain Tacombi and Mexican-inspired food brand Vista Hermosa. Just a reminder to our listeners, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. And of course, we would love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice. When Darioo Wolos is asked about the origins of Tacombi, he gets a bit nostalgic. Launched out of a retrofitted VW bus parked on the shores of Playa del Carmen, Tacombi was born out of Darioo's passion to share Mexican culture through authentic food, hospitality and ambiance. 16 years after selling its first taco, Tacombi is in the midst of a major expansion that will see it open at least 75 new locations across the U.S. over the next five years. The growth plan is being supported by a $27.5 million funding round that the company completed last year and was led by Enlightened Hospitality Investments, the growth equity fund affiliated with restaurateur Danny Meyer's Union Square Hospitality Group. Meanwhile, Tacombi's consumer packaged goods brand, Vista Hermosa, which markets tortilla chips, corn and flour tortillas, and a new line of frozen burritos, is rapidly expanding its retail footprint, which includes over 800 stores, including those of Whole Foods and Bristol Farms. Tacombi Vista Darioo's life's work. He's been planning the concept since he was a teenager. And though the new stores and retail expansion will bring his vision closer to reality, he realizes that the journey and all the experiences that come with it have come to define who he is as an entrepreneur and a leader. In the following interview, I spoke with Dario about how he has applied learnings from the early days of Tacombi to its current business operations, how the timing of Tacombi's launch and development has benefited its growth, why he described the creation of a CPG brand as quote, a natural evolution for the company, and the decision to align with Danny Meyer and Enlightened Hospitality. Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now, I'm honored to be sitting down with Darioo Wolos, who is the founder and CEO of Tacombi. Darioo, so great to see you.
[00:02:41] Darioo Wolos: Great to see you too.
[00:02:42] Ray Latif: We are here at your beautiful office that is at the intersection of about four neighborhoods in Manhattan. Where are we?
[00:02:50] Darioo Wolos: We are on the Bowery between SoHo, East Village, Lower East Side, and NoHo.
[00:02:59] Ray Latif: And it's a beautiful area. There's just so much life and excitement walking down the Bowery here. You know, it feels like there's the New York energy that everyone hears about is right here at this location. It's pretty awesome to be here.
[00:03:15] Darioo Wolos: I'm addicted to it. I think our whole company is addicted to it. When I moved to New York in 2010, I ended up living on the Bowery and our offices and everything since then has been all around the Bowery. And our first Tacombi is one block west on Elizabeth Street. And so you've got the Williamsburg Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, Chinatown, just so much going on within 10 minutes walk. It's addictive.
[00:03:45] Ray Latif: You guys moved into this office in May is what you told me. What was so special about this particular building? I mean, there's, as we talked about before we got on the mics, you know, there's just so much history in this part of town. But I think a lot of people might be thinking, oh, When Tacombi, you know, they should be in a gleaming, brand new building somewhere in Manhattan. But this is not that. But it is a beautiful building nonetheless. It's a good question.
[00:04:11] Darioo Wolos: We love architecture. We love old buildings. At the same time, we're building a brand. And the brand is rooted in connection at every level. And one of the wonderful things about New York is this connection to the past, present, and future. And a building like this, you can feel it every day. As you walk up these creaky stairs, you can feel, you know, that we're built maybe a hundred years ago. And the brick and these old windows that have that kind of crust that's windows from a different time area.
[00:04:43] Ray Latif: They definitely don't make windows like this anymore.
[00:04:44] Darioo Wolos: They don't. It's the new energy code. I think that would not fit. But they're beautiful and it's a connection to a time and a place. And the brand we're building is very much about a connection to a time and a place. And so when we were looking for office space in New York City a year ago, we toured so many places and we couldn't find an office that was the right home for our team. And our team needed a place where we could come together. And as we're all going through this process of trying to understand what is the use of the office today, how do you use it to come together to build something great? We put a lot of thought into that. And we looked hard throughout the whole city. And we have a location in the Empire State Building. We thought, OK, there's a building that has a connection to the past. And it was way too high for our legacy and way too expensive. This one was the Goldilocks building we found. It was just right. It's not too far away from your first Tacombi location in the United States. That too, it's a block away, which made it, I think, extra special in that sense for us. Because a lot of the things that we learned when we built our first Tacombi taqueria in New York City, I think are very important things that we don't want to lose. We definitely got to stay close to it and always be present as to the roots, you know, of what we are building. And so to have Nolita, what we call Fonda Nolita, a block away, is awesome.
[00:06:12] Ray Latif: Yeah, and it's great to see all the employees when I came upstairs. And by the way, those stairs are very steep. You have a number of employees here. I counted about 20, at least, that are in office right now. And, you know, there are some folks that are moving completely away from the office. They're saying, you know, like hybrid is the way to go, especially if you're having folks from all over the country working for your company. But it seems like the energy here is very much important to the direction and the future of Tacombi.
[00:06:41] Darioo Wolos: Absolutely. We're building a consumer brand and we have to keep very present the employee experience and the customer experience with every decision that we make. And we have to iterate fast. And in order to do that, we're in the process right now, like every company is trying to figure out how do you do that and take advantage of this awesome benefit of being able to work from wherever you want to work. And I think, you know, we don't have the solution yet, and it's an ongoing debate as to how best take advantage of this. I think also, as we think about the experience for all our team members here in the office, Just going back to what we were speaking about, being on the Bowery, it's feel that energy to take advantage of it. It's working out really well. And I think we've lead everything with heart. And so trying to figure out how to manage heart with the practical and logical development of a brand, it's all people driven. Figuring out how we're going to do this in today's environment where this work from home benefit is an important benefit to be understood. It's something we hope to get more clarity on over the next year and being able to work through with people together is helpful, right?
[00:08:00] Ray Latif: Yeah, I would agree. And I think it is a question that still hasn't been entirely answered. I don't think we'll ever get a firm answer going forward. But what you said is that, you know, you want people to feel comfortable being here. And it seems like people are very comfortable. I think one way to get more people to come into the office, and this is very true for our office, is making sure that there's always good food in the office. And I hope your freezers are stocked with your bueno burritos because they are fantastic. This is your new line of products under the Vista Hermosa brand, which Vista Hermosa is a brand born out of Tacombi, and we'll talk more about that momentarily. But I tried these last night. In particular, I tried the sweet potato and the cactus variety. So when I made this thing, when I cooked in the oven, when I made it, I thought I was going to eat maybe a quarter of it because it was later in the evening. And then as I went on, I was like, there's no way I can't finish this. This is incredible. This is one of the best burritos I've ever had. So going back to my original point, hopefully you're keeping some of these frozen burritos in your office often.
[00:09:06] Darioo Wolos: We can't keep the freezer stocked for the amount that people are consuming these things in our office because they are very good. Which one did you have?
[00:09:13] Ray Latif: The sweet potato and cactus variety.
[00:09:15] Darioo Wolos: Sweet potato. Yeah. Yeah. It's burritos from Mexico. It's traditionally associated with the north of Mexico, even what some people today, nowadays call California, and which is used to be part of Mexico. Right. And so to us, it was like northern Mexico and Nuevo Mexico, Viejo Mexico, all this stuff. That whole tradition of burritos is something growing up in Monterrey, I've always loved being, you know, a northern city. And to be able to have this product in my own freezer today makes me really happy because it is, One of those inventions of time, this product has existed so long in Mexico in many different shapes and forms. I remember eating them at the Oxos when I was starting Tacombi in Mexico back in 2006. Oxos is the gas station convenience store type, one of the largest convenience store chains, if not the largest in Mexico. and they have these tornillos there, which is tornillo means screw, and screw like burrito is how the thing comes together. And I used to get these in their refrigerated section and microwave them, and it was just like the snack in between When Tacombi and the kitchen supply store. And so it's been on my mind, how do we do something as good as that for quite a while? And when we started making burritos here in New York six years ago for the taquerias, it was a huge debate because they're like, this is not Mexican. This is from California. And I was like, no, it's not. They exist. So we had to go with the team down to Mexico and we had to find many examples of real burritos in Mexico. And we found a number, and we even found variations in the southern parts of Mexico where they call them burritas, which are exactly the same. So if you actually look on our restaurant menus, they're called burritas. In CPG, we had to call them burritos because we thought it was just too much of a stretch to actually explain what they're calling in one state of Mexico. But I guess this speaks to the variety of Mexican food in general and just how much there is to discover. And it's such a great way to discover culture. And I think the ranching cultures of the north of Mexico, where the flour tortilla reigns, is just one of my favorite places to be. I know it's a long story why we're eating burritos.
[00:11:40] Ray Latif: No, it's a great story. And I can tell how passionate you are for the cuisine of Mexico and for maintaining the traditions that were born out of the country. And the origins of Tacombi didn't necessarily start there, but I think they were born out of your desire to do something different with your life. You know, after Cornell, you did what everyone does at that age. You look for a great job. And that landed you in London. Is that right? It did.
[00:12:11] Darioo Wolos: First to Boston, and then from Boston, they sent me to London. And I had actually written the first business plan at University of Tacoma. It was called Taco Rex.
[00:12:23] Ray Latif: Really? Okay, so you had this idea to start Tacombi while in college?
[00:12:29] Darioo Wolos: I think from even before. When I was 15, I was in high school in Canada. And my friends from Canada that came down to Mexico were wild about all the different things that they saw in Mexico with us. The family traditions and eating out on the streets, tacos and these kinds of things. It was a totally different world to them. I think you'd ask any of my friends over those years today, and they were like, Darioo Wolos always talking about this shit, like all the time. And to the point of exhaustion, I think, where the name in Cornell, it was called Taco Rex in London. it became Taco Sutra, which, you know, I had a friend and, you know, obviously, London, you've got all types of Indian food and all this kind of stuff. And so I started to kind of maybe think there was a connection there. And Taco Sutra didn't really describe the Mexico that I wanted to. And so eventually Tacombi did, right? That very much explains the perspective that we have on Mexico.
[00:13:31] Ray Latif: And it all started in a VW bus in an Oceanside Resort town in Mexico. Was that as much about testing and learning as it was creating a viable business?
[00:13:43] Darioo Wolos: A good friend of mine from Merida, Yucateco, said, Darío, you should start your business in Mexico. You should do it here. And we were in Playa del Carmen when we had this conversation. He said, you should do it here because if you do it in London, you're going to lose all your money because you don't know what you're doing. And it's way harder than it looks. Starting in Playa del Carmen gave me this perspective on Mexico that is fundamental to the brand we're building. And coincidentally, that same friend, his cousin, I couchsurfed with his cousin, and eventually Tacombi came out of one of our conversations. That really, to me, symbolized the Mexican story that we wanted to tell with this brand that we would build. And to go to Mexico City, buy this VW bus, a Combi, and drive it from Mexico City and tow it, because it doesn't really go that far, all through the southern part of Mexico, just really opened my eyes to this story of Mexico that we're telling.
[00:14:49] Ray Latif: So it was as much about telling the story of Mexico as it was building a business that could feed people. And by building a business that could feed people, I mean essentially a restaurant. I say it that way because my dad who operated restaurants and grocery stores always used to say, you know, we're doing good in the world by feeding people. This is how we're positively impacting society is we're feeding people as opposed to, you know, we're making money by selling food.
[00:15:17] Darioo Wolos: I think the way your father described it is right on. Feeding food and the practice of hospitality, it's natural to all of us all over the world. I think it's something that's part of being human. To partake in that process, to be the one serving the food and making the food and all that is something we should all get to do in our lives and learn from and spend time because it is an essential part of being human. And to do that through the lens of Mexico, combined with just who I am, I think to my detriment in building the business, always thinking big, sometimes too big, is hard when you have to focus on the steps that get you to each milestone along the way. In this process is when I really began to learn about hospitality and I was able then to really think about Mexican hospitality in that context. And all those things were happening together in the backdrop of the crystal blue waters of the Caribbean of Mexico, which is good because it gave me really this opportunity to think clearly about what this thing could become. And when you're talking about these things in a little beach town, your friends and your family think you're kind of crazy.
[00:16:39] Ray Latif: They didn't think you were crazy from the outset, driving a VW bus to Mexico City to play Adel Carmen.
[00:16:44] Darioo Wolos: Yeah, I mean, when my mom showed up and she was like, you're going to make tacos in Mexico. That's not my dream come true. And, you know, my parents have always been very loving and supportive. getting them to understand how this would work, which I think part of the process, which is in building anything is getting help, helping other people understand what it is you see. And so. It was just so much fun rolling up my sleeves, learning to make tacos, cutting open the comb beef, figuring out how to apply the basic learnings of construction and manufacturing that I had gleaned from watching my dad do things throughout his life. And to put it all together, to open up a taco stand, was the beginning, I think, of this whole adventure. And actually getting put into practice.
[00:17:40] Ray Latif: When you were in Mexico, it made sense. You know, I think selling tacos and selling high quality tacos out of local ingredients is something that people expect. They don't expect it here in the United States. So number one, why did you make the move to the U.S.? And number two, you know, how did you expect to achieve the kind of quality and ingredients that you could easily source in Mexico here?
[00:18:05] Darioo Wolos: So I struggled to successfully operate the business in Playa del Carmen. I'd say 95%, if not all 100%, were my shortcomings in understanding how to do it and being able to focus on what had to be done now and not thinking too much about the future. And as I struggled through those years and struggled and enjoyed, right? Cause I, you know, it's, it's, it's a fun process.
[00:18:37] Ray Latif: How many years were you in Mexico?
[00:18:39] Darioo Wolos: So I opened in February 6 of 2006. I'd already gotten there a year before from London. And I opened up in New York September of 2010. So it was about five and a half years on that trip back. But a good portion of that I was already going back and forth between New York and Playa del Carmen because we had At the time we opened up in New York, we still had Tacombi, the original one, operating in Playa del Carmen. I wasn't able to keep both New York and Playa open back then. I just didn't have the resources. And when I decided to bring Tacombi to New York, I had given up on my original plan, which was to actually open it up in London. And I could no longer afford to go that far. And the push was in the form of the last pandemic, which was the swine flu. And so the swine flu shut down tourism in Mexico for a good six months on the Cancun Caribbean coast where Playa del Carmen is. And that was enough. of a signal that I had to shut down the second Tacombi that I had just opened eight blocks away from the original one. And I packed up that Tacombi and began to look at where I could take it. And I thought Mexico City and I thought Monterrey and I thought Miami, Austin, Los Angeles. And that trip to New York gave New York a real look and thought I could live here. I could do this. I could bring Tacombi here. And again, similar back in Playa, everyone's like, you're crazy, man. It's like New York. It's like, you can't make it in Playa, you're here in New York. But Playa really is a great place to cut your teeth because it's hard to do business there. It's challenging, the bureaucracy, the up and down of the tourist season, which has pretty much gone away now. It's pretty fluid. Back then, it was very much up and down. And we packed up that Tacombi, my friends helped me get it to Puerto Morelos, and we got it on the boat to Miami. From there, trailered it up to New York City, and I began to look for a space. And I think I chose New York City for the same reasons that I chose Playa del Carmen. It had a people from all over the world, all over the United States, all over Mexico, living here in this city. And it was an opportunity to put the brand in front of that audience. And I thought everything that we stood for was right. We hadn't figured out yet the fundamentals of the business model that was going to make it successful and ended up on Elizabeth Street, just a block away from here.
[00:21:34] Ray Latif: What made the timing right to open the first Tacombi here in New York City? Or was the timing right? And I ask that because people have grown up on what they perceive to be Mexican food, but we know and our audience knows that that's not Mexican food. I mean, even if you haven't been to Mexico, I'm pretty sure you know that Taco Bell food is not traditional Mexican food. So what made the timing right? to launch here and to thrive here.
[00:22:07] Darioo Wolos: The diaspora of Mexican immigration in the United States was present all over the country. So you had now second, third, and in many cases, fourth and fifth generation Mexicans around the United States with these traditions. many people working in hospitality in these industries ready to kind of share their culture at the next level. That was starting to happen in the United States at the time. The areas of the United States that are most strongly associated with Mexico are those states that used to be part of Mexico. And in those states, you find these generational traditions I was talking about that go back four or five generations and whatnot. And as the border separated them, those traditions started to diverge. And we have Taco Bell, one of those things, right? the evolution of a cuisine in the context of North America and what it became left a lot to be discovered. And I think that what is the opportunity for the world today is to discover it, right? We have all these connections now and you can see it, you can pop open your phone and scroll through it. There's just connection to be had to the root source of the information, exactly what's happening And I think with Mexican food, it is such a big and diverse and interesting country that to be able to explore it and discover it is a luxury for anyone who has the time to go and do that. And so cuisine as a way of getting to that place, getting to that story is magic. Right. And so I think opening up in New York in 2010 and with this perspective on Mexico, the timing was right because I think, you know, the market was primed really for this discovery. And so when we opened up in New York City and wanted to tell the story of Mexico, which was really through the lens of Mexican hospitality, which goes back to, I think, where we started our conversation, ads color to the experience all around the country, because it's much more than recipes. It's food and travel and the warmth of this culture. And so opening up in New York with And this was something I hadn't thought much about, but a large part of the hospitality workforce in New York is from Mexico, and a lot of them are actually from three states, Puebla, Oaxaca, and Guerrero, which happen to be, you know, where Oaxaca, where Mezcal comes from. Culinarily, they are just amazing places to visit. Tequila is made in, I think, also in Puebla, if I'm not mistaken. And so when you look at what was just already here in New York City in terms of knowledge, it was just all here. What I couldn't get to happen in Mexico was for people to join the vision of Tacombi to help build it. Because I think to be able to tell that story, And to see how much people would love this around the world wasn't totally clear in Playa del Carmen, but in New York, there was so many people that could see it and wanted to join on this project of building Tacombi.
[00:25:35] Ray Latif: You know, you have this concept of Hospitality Group Mexican Hospitality Group have a workforce that understands Mexican cuisine quite well. The ingredients, though, going back to the ingredients, the high quality ingredients that you used in the first Tacombi that are native to Mexico and the consistency of that supply must have been pretty difficult to navigate here in the U.S.
[00:25:56] Darioo Wolos: Totally. That was... one of those opportunities, those lucky opportunities that you put yourself in front of when you go after an adventure like this. And being in Mexico and I could get the fish from the Cooperativa de Pescadores of Playa del Carmen who, you know, they would catch these awesome snappers and every morning and then just be able to go get that stuff fresh. And to be able to go down the street and get tortillas de maiz or tortillas de harina, which were around the corner, literally from this Tacombi, there was a really cool little tortilleria de harina in Playa del Carmen, and they would make us the burrito tortillas that we needed, and they would make us the small flour tortillas as well. When we got to New York, we couldn't find that quality. And to tell the story of Mexico, we had architected the brand in a way that was always about connecting people to Mexico. So we never thought of the brand as being restaurants or food or anything, but connecting people to Mexico. And that's why the brand architecture When Tacombi symbolizing where you get the food, where you go, When Tacombi, right, is this laid back example of Mexican Hospitality Group a taqueria. And our Vista Hermosa brand and our other CPG brands representing these premium, high quality food experiences, we kind of put this into When Tacombi design. And then naturally, as we couldn't find that food, we had to make it, the ingredients. And that's what led us to making the Vista Hermosa tortillas and led us down this path of trying to make them better and better and better until they were very much in the perfect place of having a unique brand experience, a packaging experience with this tradition of something being made because of necessity, which is a very different way of building something when it's out of necessity of making something, that I think has led to a phenomenal product, which then Whole Foods began to carry in the, I think the first one we sold it at was in Williamsburg.
[00:28:13] Ray Latif: Did your friends tell you that you were crazy for wanting to start a CPG brand? The restaurant business is hard enough, Darioo, as you know. Getting into consumer products, also very, very tough. Doing both at the same time, I don't know. But I mean, it seems like it was a natural evolution for Tacombi and for Vista Hermosa.
[00:28:32] Darioo Wolos: I think the traditions and the way that the Mexican segment works and the way Mexican food and cuisine works, we fit perfectly into that equation. And we also weren't thinking about it so much in terms of, can we build these different businesses? We were just thinking about, can we build this? Can we tell this whole story of Mexico? And so it continues to lead us down a path of focusing on quality and customer experience and how can we do it better? How can we just always do it better? And so I think when you're not thinking about things and you just really focus on what matters most, that puts you in the best place, I think, for success. We always, being a business, had the pressure of cash flow. That was an inevitable part of the reality of any business. And whether you've got a long runway or a short runway, based on how the world has just changed its perspective in the last year, being able to build something out of necessity puts you in a really good place. And I think to tell the story of Mexico, it is products, it is these traditions, these artisanal traditions that we have focused on getting into customers' hands. And so I would sit down with potential investors in the early years and tell them about what we were going to do. And yes, they said, you're crazy. They said, you can't do it all. You got to pick one. But our business model, I would argue, is if you look at Some of these larger companies today that have been around for 50, 70, 100 years, they go back to these fundamental ideas. And I think like the Mexican experience is a lot like, I think Disney is a good metaphor, right? And except Mexico evolved naturally organically through the fusion of cultures and evolution over time and whatnot. And Disney was this creation, but it's this experience that there's so many different ways to interact with it. And Mexico is that. And so as we try to connect more and more people to it, it just puts us in that position.
[00:30:42] Ray Latif: you know, when I think about compelling contents and creating content that people want to see, I think, you know, there's a wide variety of things that you can put out there, but with attention spans going down to nil, almost, and, you know, authenticity being top of mind for everyone, I mean, how do you do it in a way that's really going to impact the brand, have that impact that you hope it to have?
[00:31:11] Darioo Wolos: I get what you're saying when you say attention spans going down to nil. What I think that is referring to is the quality of content. If there's an awesome three hour movie, maybe Dune was probably the last three hour movie I think I watched. Which is a phenomenal movie, by the way. Incredible. I can watch that thing a hundred times and never get enough of it. It is, you know, incredible content. I think can always be appreciated, like literature and arts in general. There is that connection to something special that you can experience. good content is far and few, there's few, far and few in between or wherever the expression is, right? Like creating awesome content, whether it's in the form of a Michelin star restaurant, the food and the whole experience, or an awesome taco stand on the corner in Valladolid that makes tortas de lechon, to create awesome content is hard and it requires focus and love from the creators. And so I think in digital video and the many different types of video content that you can share, in order to capture someone's attention, it just has to be excellent content. And it's just not easy to do that. We as a brand, as we've been building Tacombi, we have delayed doing that because it is so hard and it's only really matters in our brand if we're able to lay out the foundation on which we could then use that to support it and to even better tell the story that we're telling. As you build any company and brand, you really want to get good at telling your story. I think telling the story of the food products and the ingredients is fundamental to telling the story of Mexican food. So by default, our CPG content, if you will, is part of the answer towards this problem that we have to solve for. And then when you start the content side, well done, well executed. When I was young, I saw a movie called Como Agua para Chocolate. I don't know if you've seen this, like water for chocolate. It's an old school movie. I don't know if it's American or Mexican. It's worth watching. But it takes you on a journey into a Mexican family kitchen where there's so much love that goes into making the food. I think they all explode at the end in fireworks or something. It's pretty cool and trippy in its own sense. But it's worth watching because I think Como Agua para Chocolate, captures the emotion and the intensity of Mexican hospitality and Mexican cuisine and all the ingredients that go into making Mexican food. I think mole is one of those examples of Mexican food that is just incredible, right? And so when you go in and building flavors is really hard and Mexico has this huge catalog of so many flavors around the country, that to tell that story, and that's just the Mexico we know. And then there's the Mexico today that is evolving super fast, like the rest of the world is evolving. And so you can imagine Mexican cuisine in Mexico today is evolving that fast. So to be able just to tell that story and connect people to it, it's a never ending source of content ideas, right? That if we can capture it well, I think we can live our mission better. So that's how we think of content and digital as part of. Solving the problems of connecting people to Mexico. I do think bringing people to Mexico more and more, it's already happening. Physically bringing people.
[00:34:51] Ray Latif: Yeah.
[00:34:51] Darioo Wolos: I mean, tourism in Mexico, right? It's, it's a very big part of Mexico's economy. I think it's one of the best ways to discover Mexico. Nothing better than the real thing. I think if I'm not, I feel like that someone said that. But there's nothing better than the real thing. And so we can make a very special, incredible Taqueria Tacombi experience, or a very special Vista Hermosa, you know, wherever you want to get it. But to go to Mexico, where these ideas came from, where these traditions came from, and to experience it firsthand, there's nothing like it. We can never compete with Mexico itself, right? And we don't try to, I think. So to bring people to Mexico, As we grow this company so that they can experience where we get our CPG ideas from, it seems like a natural evolution of the brand. How we're going to make that work is not a problem I'm worried about solving today. But this passion that I have for something, that is not my passion. Many people love Mexico. To be able to share it with more people is a blessing, right? And so the more that we get to do that, it just leads us closer and closer to the purpose of why we started Tacombi.
[00:36:06] Ray Latif: Do you have to spend more time on content, more time and resources on content for your CPG brands than your restaurant because your restaurant is a little bit more established? Or is it just about creating great content that impacts the whole of your business?
[00:36:23] Darioo Wolos: Well, they are one in the same because of that. So that opportunity works very well for Tacombi in general. I can see it clearly. How we execute it is another problem we have to figure out how to solve for. But it is one in the same, right? And you can't have an awesome taco without an awesome tortilla. And you can't have an awesome tortilla without the process of nixtamalization. And there's some pretty crazy food science today. Maybe you can like cacao beans are being made in a test tube. Maybe you can make these flavors somewhere else. But, you know, what's naturally evolved there and the beauty of the terroir of all the different regions of Mexico. The story of CPG has always been a layer that supports the food industry in general, whether a customer wants to consume it in their home, or now through delivery, or through direct-to-consumer, or through an actual brick-and-mortar restaurant experience, and whatever other things, maybe in the metaverse, you'll be able to do that soon.
[00:37:28] Ray Latif: Before the EHI deal, before the deal with Danny Meyer and his group, you told me that Tacombi was bootstrapped. You bootstrapped the development of the company. Now you have quite a bit of money or there was quite a bit of money invested into the business and your growth plans seem to be pretty aggressive. I believe opening 75 new stores or getting to a point where you have 75 new stores in the next couple of years or next year? Yep. Up until now, it seems like you built the business with a lot of, I don't want to say a cautious approach, but it feels like it was a thoughtful approach to building the business in terms of what was coming next, what was being built next. At this accelerated pace, what are you most, are you at all concerned about how fast you're growing or are you more motivated and excited about the future?
[00:38:20] Darioo Wolos: We're trying to make better and better decisions as we build Tacombi. It's been such a special adventure thus far. I would love to be able to see it exist in the places I've always dreamed of it existing, right? Whether it's Omaha. or Tokyo or anywhere in the world that I could think of. And so to be able to see it and be there with it in my lifetime, I think would be pretty awesome. And so how we grow and how we grow fast, I think there are many great consumer brands in the world, and there are a lot of learnings from all of them in terms of how they grew. And in the food sector, Shake Shack is a really awesome example, and there's Chipotle and Sweetgreen. But I think when you look at brands in general, you have to invest in the customer experience, and you always have to invest in the customer experience. You have to make it better and better and better, and you've got to stay relevant. Consumer brands consume a lot of capital themselves and to be reinvested in them. And so I think we are mindful of that and how we build the business really has to take into account our cost of capital. And our cost of capital is something I'm tasked with always trying to find how to get it lower and lower over time. And the conditions in the world change around you as you're going on these hundred-year adventures. But that's just the rules of the game. And so you have to adapt to it. we need to make sure that what we're doing works and is better in each new place that we go. And with that come challenges. And if we can afford to iterate through those challenges fast, great. If we have to go slow sometimes to think through it, I think the learning process in New York from bootstrapping in Mexico through to this, you know, first stage was always tempered by some really thoughtful people. And, you know, we had some friends and family investors who continue to be shareholders of the company today come in and offer solid advice throughout all these years, which was a lot tempering the growth. A lot of that was like, I want to go there, I want to go faster, I want to do this. But it was tempered with the reality of cash flow. And you got to always go back to that when you're building something. And in the end, I think it's helped us build something special. It's that the push and pull of just wanting to go faster with the realities of cash flow, something so simple like that, that's so hard to learn really what it means and how it works. for some people, at least it has been for me. You know, once you start to understand that, and then you can really look at the rest of your business and understand how it's working. And it's a beautiful process, building something like this with so many talented people. In the end, I think like it's ultimately it's the people that are on this journey together that makes it special. And these challenges in New York, brought on so many talented people. And that was, I was telling you a while ago, in Mexico, I couldn't communicate well enough and I couldn't demonstrate that this was something that could be very special. And in New York, I was able to find many people who could see and were excited to be part of an adventure like this. And I think that's what building businesses are. They're these wild adventures that happen in so many different dimensions. And so our next couple stages of growth, I'm sure will be challenging, but I think we're up for solving those problems, right, to come with it.
[00:41:56] Ray Latif: Folks, we don't have video of this interview, but I almost wish we did because you can probably get a sense from hearing Darioo about how passionate he is for this business and what it's taken to get here. And I think about your 15-year-old self, Darioo, and how he would look at where you are right now in your life and, you know, on the cusp of making Tacombia a household name. And it's a beautiful thing. And, you know, I congratulate you on getting here. And I know it wasn't easy, as we talked about, but here you are. And it's, it's incredible. Congratulations again. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with me. And I'm so glad that we got to share your story.
[00:42:39] Darioo Wolos: And thank you. I'm so happy that we made the connection and you came and visited us at our office here on the Bowery. It's a great luxury to enjoy this life and to focus on something you're passionate about. And I'm super happy to share it with more people and any learnings that I've had in this process. And so thank you for helping us with that. You are very welcome.
[00:43:04] Ray Latif: Thank you again, Darioo. That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio. Thank you so much for listening, and thanks to our guest, Darioo Wolos. Our audio engineer for Taste Radio is Joe Cracci, our technical director is Joshua Pratt, and our video editor is Ryan Galang. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to askattasteradio.com. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.
