Chad Franzen 12:45
What would you say makes District Taco a good opportunity for a potential franchisee?
Chris Medhurst 12:54
I think first and foremost, the there’s really nothing like essence in the market, I believe that were truly unique. And I think that we’re we’re, our brand is situated in such a way that it doesn’t cater to one type of person or one one marketplace. We’re really, you know, we’re families love us, you know, all kinds of different demographics, a lot of us. And I think, you know, we’re, we see ourselves as being like maybe in the better taco category, like a Five Guys or some of these other brands. But, you know, I, you know, we just went over, we’re redoing our FTD. And looking at all the other competitors in the space, our average unit volumes are like 1.9 million, which is really, no one even comes close and the Mexican basketball space. So I think the uniqueness of our brand. And the success we’ve shown is what really, I think can provide value or makes us attractive to people.
Chad Franzen 14:01
You guys, you know, they started as a food truck in ‘09, you came on board in 2010 when it was still a food truck. And, you know, in the last so that’s what, 13 years ago. So in the past 13 years, you basically averaged one new restaurant per year, if not more, what? What do you think makes your brand so unique and so kind of successful? I mean, that’s a pretty good opening rate for especially considering you haven’t been franchising much until now.
Chris Medhurst 14:29
Yeah, and I would take out the years after 2020 Because the whole industry was cool. Yeah, of course. Yeah, I mean, I think the thing that makes us unique is really our flavors of services upbringing and in the Yucatan Peninsula area of Mexico is a little town called the cash. I actually got to go visit his his family there which was awesome last year. But a lot of those flavors have have really I mean, he’s he’s been, like religious about making sure those flavors from his childhood get carried over. And you know, he’s he’s constantly in communication with his mom and his brother back home, about, you know, how to improve the flavor and how to, like, try to remember the recipes that have these things that his mom made it when he was a kid. And I think, you know, a lot of the brands here are just kind of, I feel like just slapped together trying to create a franchise concept or, or Mexican concept. Whereas I feel like are the roots of our flavors and our food profile is totally unique in comparison to the other brands.
Chad Franzen 15:44
You You mentioned COVID How did COVID impact or change operations at district taco, if at all,
Chris Medhurst 15:51
if at all, yeah, it completely changed everything. I was the CFO at that time, which was incredibly stressful. But it was also really, it was a great learning experience for us. You know, we had to figure out how to survive. Because we didn’t know if we were going to be able to make payroll just like everybody else. But you know, we did a lot, we did a ton to really cut down on any baggage that we had, we cut some menu items, we have reduced the floor plan of our future restaurants to kind of accommodate for, you know, all this online traffic. And we, we actually were really fortunate because we enabled delivery, kind of like end of 2019. And we also, we had a really good curbside program, we use a partner called Radius Networks, they their product called Flyby, where, you know, we were set up for this kind of like social distancing food service environment already. So in that respect, we were able to just hit the hit the ground running. But you know, cutting staff, you know, redoing processes and cutting menu items to really get back to the basics was, was really good for us, I think we’re much more efficient now. And the numbers will show it
Chad Franzen 17:15
as kind of a guy who’s head of operations, and with the amount of stores that are, have been seemingly kind of constantly opening except during COVID, what would you say are some of the essential elements to opening a new store, but meaning kind of maintaining that same kind of brand integrity?
Chris Medhurst 17:36
It’s really hard. I mean, it’s the hardest thing I think about operating restaurants is there’s so much institutional knowledge among the employees of the you know, the stores that have been operating for 10 years. And it takes a while to develop that. And, you know, a lot of its training, I think we really focus on training, we have a whole training program, you know, we we have a director of training now. And we have our own proprietary system that we developed actually, for training. We used a couple open-source solutions to create this training platform, but, you know, there’s a lot of things like, you know, where’s where are they going to keep the the fire extinguisher, you know, all these things that don’t get, don’t get decided don’t get included in the training manual, that kind of just get learned on the spot. And I think it takes at least three months for us to really feel like you know, the store can kind of operate and be a little bit self sufficient. And then, you know, it takes two to three years for the sales and for the market to develop and for people to start to appreciate your concept. And we made a conscious decision to go and open stores in Philadelphia. So we have two stores there. And we really wanted to show that the brand could be successful outside of our home market. So that was like a whole different challenge of and, you know, along that longer development schedule of building sales for three to three years for them to kind of really reach their full potential. So yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s incredibly difficult. I think training is hugely important and just providing the support to the ops crew there is essential.
Chad Franzen 19:27
You said you have 70 more stores in development, what kind of geographic reach will that look like then? And will you be coming to Colorado where I am?
Chris Medhurst 19:38
Hopefully, not within the next five years. Right now. You know, we’re primarily going to focus on the East Coast. We’ve got one franchisee in Northern Virginia, one franchisee in the Virginia Beach, Norfolk area. We’ve got two franchisees in the New Jersey area. Yeah, and then we’ve got one big franchisee down in Florida. So we’ve actually got a 40 unit deal. All kind of on the west coast of Florida.
Chad Franzen 20:11
Okay, wow, awesome. I have one more question for you but just telling me first how people can find out about district taco from a customer standpoint and also maybe from a franchisee standpoint?
Chris Medhurst 20:24
Sure. Yeah. I mean, our websites the best place www.districttaco.com. If you want to look at our food and then any interest in franchising, we’ve got franchising.districttaco.com
Chad Franzen 20:39
Okay, awesome. Hey, out. Last question. When you go to District Taco as a customer, what’s kind of your go-to item of choice?
Chris Medhurst 20:48
Oh, man, that’s a tough question. I think my ideal meal would be a breakfast burrito. I think our breakfast is second to none. And that’s another thing that makes us so unique. So I usually go with the breakfast burrito. Depending on if I want to get Teresa or or Ito which is our Beyond Meat product. I’ll go with one of those two, and then the sauces we make all of our sauces fresh every day. So the mystery service also is my favorite. And then we also have a habanero that’s actually hot, which you can’t really get hot food or spicy food at any other brand. So that’s my go to for that. And then for sides. We have chips and queso and we let people add toppings so I always get Theresa and jalapenos and my queso. And then to top it all off. I go with the churro for dessert.
Chad Franzen 21:45
Nice. Awesome. Wow. Sounds fantastic. So you guys are open for breakfast too. Or do you just sell breakfast burritos as part of your regular menu? Yep, you serve breakfast all day. Okay, great. Hey, Chris. It’s been great to talk to you. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.
Chris Medhurst 21:58
Yeah, thanks so much, Chad. It’s good to meet you.
Chad Franzen 22:00
So long, everybody.
Outro 22:01
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