When Dario Wolos told his mother in 2006 that he was going to leave his job at an Internet startup in London and move to Mexico so he can sell tacos on a beach, she wasn’t exactly thrilled. Wolos’s mother is from Monterrey, Mexico, and taco sales weren’t quite what she wanted for her son. “It was more of a shock,” he said in an interview. “I had a really good job.”
But that taco shop would ultimately turn into Tacombi, which today has 15 locations, including eight in New York City. And those first years on the beach in Playa del Carmen would prove particularly fruitful.
Playa del Carmen is a tourist destination, drawing people from around the world, but particularly the U.S. Those tourists would try the tacos and ask them to bring the shop to their city. The requests came from people all over. Ultimately, Wolos chose New York City, where the company’s first location opened in 2010.
“New York is a hard place to start a restaurant,” Wolos said, “but Mexico is way harder. After dealing with the bureaucracy of Mexico, New York really just felt like a breeze.”
Tacombi appears to be hitting its stride. The company has opened locations throughout the east but is eyeing more markets across the country, including Chicago. The brand believes it can open locations in many types of suburban and urban markets and believes it can expand to 75 locations across the country over the next four years.
The aggressive expansion comes a year after it received a $27.5 million investment from Enlightened Hospitality Investments, the investment fund from restaurateur Danny Meyer.
Tacombi is part of a generation of upgraded, fast-casual taco shops pushing aggressive expansion across the U.S., including Torchy’s Tacos and Velvet Taco, among others. The chains pair upgraded service along with alcohol in a fast-casual setting.
What sets Tacombi apart is its heritage as a Playa del Carmen taco stand. When Wolos brought that stand to New York City, he also brought with him a strong desire to connect consumers with Mexican culture. At the ICR Conference in Orlando earlier this month, Wolos spoke often of a desire to “connect people with all aspects of Mexican life.”
And it extends beyond the restaurant itself. In 2016, when he was asked if he could sell tortillas in a local New York Whole Foods, the company made the tortillas, packed them up and brought them to the grocer itself. “We did it literally just like they do in Mexico,” Wolos said. “We packed up the tortillas, loaded them in a cooler and delivered them to Whole Foods on the subway.”
That would ultimately evolve into the Vista Hermosa line of tortillas, chips and frozen burritos that are sold in 2,200 retail shops across the country. “CPG just kind of took off in 2016,” Wolos said.
As the brand grows, Wolos is taking lessons from other companies that have been there, including Shake Shack, the concept founded by Meyer that has been among the country’s fastest-growing chains over the past several years.
“There’s a playbook for everything,” he said. For instance, the company is using a managing partner model, similar to one deployed at Texas Roadhouse. Many of the chain’s taquerias use this model, providing equity to managers who can earn up to $200,000 a year in the process. “It gives us an opportunity to have strong community leaders in each new market where we grow,” Wolos said.
It’s a lesson he took from seeing former Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy at a conference. “By sharing more with the leaders of your restaurant, you end up getting more,” Wolos said. “What we give up we’re definitely earning back.”
As he discussed that strategy, Wolos admitted that, “we would love to learn more about this.” It was a comment he made more than once—he also did so about CPG—proving that even an operator who received millions from one of the country’s most renowned restaurateurs can still seek out advice wherever he can get it. “We’re getting perspectives of people who’ve got what it takes to scale across the country,” Wolos said.
It remains to be seen how big Tacombi can get. But it has a big advantage. “Everybody loves tacos,” Wolos said. He believes his company’s focus on authenticity, dating back to its days as a beachfront taco stand, will ultimately give Tacombi a leg up in a growing, competitive market.