When Venecia Willis interviewed for her position as Director of Culinary for Dallas-based Velvet Taco, she was tasked with developing four tacos for the executive team to taste. She feels it was her taco filled with baby back rib meat glazed with Dr Pepper BBQ sauce and topped with cherry jalapeno salsa, crispy jalapenos and napa slaw that landed her the job.
That taco also landed on Velvet Taco’s rotating WTF or Weekly Taco Feature, a collection of 52 LTO tacos that hit the menu one at a time every week.
“WTF is a pipeline that expands on our core menu and keeps guests excited,” said Willis. “We change the core menu of 19 tacos twice a year and each WTF has the potential to become part of it.”
Willis feels her baby back taco with cherry jalapeno salsa won her the job as culinary director. /Photo courtesy of Velvet Taco
Coming up with 52 taco ideas
Willis isn’t daunted by the demand to produce 52 different tacos a year—all made from scratch.
“To build a taco, you need a base ingredient that’s usually a protein, plus a sauce, vegetables or starch and a garnish that provides a textural or aromatic element, like crunchy garlic or sesame seeds,” she said. “And you can use any type of vessel besides traditional corn or flour tortillas. We’ve used waffle tortillas and lettuce cups.”
Unlike Mexican concepts, Velvet Taco is not limited by any one cuisine.
Willis also ties into holidays or events, like a pizza taco for National Pizza Day and a Hangover Taco on New Year’s Eve. Right now, the 35-unit Velvet Taco is promoting a Thanksgiving taco called “Dinner at the Rockwells.” It’s composed of a flour tortilla filled with turkey, sage stuffing, crispy sweet potatoes, house-made cranberry sauce and peppercorn gravy.
The chain also has a library of 300 tacos that can cycle back onto the menu at opportune times.
But Willis has devised a precise R&D process for creating new weekly tacos.
“Every couple of months we do a 10-taco tasting and put the ideas in front of the food committee made up of the CEO, COO, marketing and purchasing,” she said. “Some have to use existing SKUs, some are limited to no more than two new ingredients. We try to find products that Sysco stocks, otherwise they have to be special ordered.”
Regional culinary managers also get involved in the tasting and selection process. Once the winning WTFs are determined, Willis creates planning sheets a full quarter ahead. Those are sent to Sysco to lock the supplies in place.
Before the weekly taco feature is scheduled to run, she then sends photos of the item to each store, detailing every step of the build. The Tuesday before, each of Velvet Taco’s 33 corporate locations does a dry run to test the taco. “If there are any snags or questions, the regional culinary manager handles them,” she said.
Overcoming R&D challenges
Even with all these checkpoints, Mother Nature and other uncontrollable forces can disrupt a taco’s launch.
When Willis’s baby back rib taco was scheduled to run in summer, the cherry crop had peaked a week early and cherries were in short supply. Sysco had to scramble to supply enough fruit to scale up the cherry jalapeno salsa to every location.
Another one of Willis’s “audition” tacos—a Pork and Shrimp Eggroll Taco—also made it into the WTF rotation. It’s basically a deconstructed egg roll with a layer of napa cabbage slaw flavored with ginger, garlic and soy sauce, a pork and shrimp stir-fry filling, crispy wonton strips and a drizzle of Sriracha aioli and garnish of chopped green onions.
The Pork and Shrimp Eggroll Taco required some tweaks before it was perfected. /Photo courtesy of Velvet Taco
But getting it from idea to launch required some tweaks.
“Sourcing the wonton wrappers for the crispy strips was a challenge,” Willis said. “We tried several types before finding the right one. Some had too much egg and puffed up too much when fried.”
She also tried sauteeing the cabbage instead of making a slaw, but that created too much liquid, she said. A simple slaw worked better and it goes on the bottom.
The week before the launch, when the taco was tested, the ground pork that was delivered had a different fat content than the original used during R&D. “I had to change the recipe at the last minute,” said Willis.
Coming down the pipeline
To feed the pipeline, Velvet Taco holds a regular Taco Chef competition and every team member can submit a WTF. “The winners from each location go to regionals, then we hold a national event,” said Willis. “The ultimate winner gets $1,000 and their taco rotates into the weekly taco feature.”
The chain also solicits ideas from guests, and 800 recipes came in last time. A customer from Richardson, Texas, won with his Pho Taco, and he was invited to come to the Velvet Taco test kitchen to work on the recipe with the team.
Willis has already filled in her spreadsheet for Spring 2023 and will start testing new tacos the first week in December. Without giving away any secrets, she mentioned she is exploring Caribbean jerk flavors, a Mediterranean mushroom taco and several seafood items, including mahi and crispy calamari.
Despite all the new taco iterations that come through the WTF promotion, there are some items that are indispensable to the core menu.
“The Spicy Tikka Chicken Taco is our best seller and can never come off the menu,” said Willis. “Same with the Brisket Taco. It’s made with slow-roasted Angus brisket wrapped in a cheese-encrusted tortilla.”