Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is iHeartRadio's Maryland Business Spotlight. Each week we hear
from one local business owner letting us know where they
are in their business journey and how they got there.
I'm here today with Nelson rho Is, owner and founder
of Muco Gusto. Nelson, I love Mucco Gusto. I have
one near me in the Gambrels area. Tell us about it.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah, so that's our newest location. By the way, we
have three, started in bel Air about six years ago.
Mucha Gusta really is just kind of simple. It's a
you know, Mexican influenced, Latin inspired dishes. You know, fresh
food is our concept, along with you know, quality craft
cocktails and a nice, fun, good, good looking environment. A
lot of people say our environments are instagrammable and the
(00:39):
experience is always a lot of fun. So, you know,
we offer you know, Mexican food, so anything from what
you're used to you know, some people like you know
tex mechs that's their version of Mexican food. We certainly
offer that. We offer more traditional Mexican food. And we
also you know, for the person that's taken one for
the team and maybe you know they're outvoted five people
(00:59):
on Mexicain. They wanted Italian. We even have something for
them as well. Uh, and we have. Yeah, We've taken
some good American dishes and putting a little bit of
a Latin flare on them. So to give you something,
you know, and maybe you'll try it and you'll find
out that, yeah, I get. So we try to We
try to get to everyone the best we can. Uh.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
You know.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
It makes us a little different, I guess, and a
little unique from a lot of the Mexican places that
you're used to, because we're basically a scratch kitchen. So
there is no microwave in our kitchen. There's no walking
freezer in our kitchen. We make everything from scratch. Our
chips are made in house, our sauces made in house,
Our hot sauces made in house. Behind the bar. There's
no simple seer or sour mix you know, in the
(01:39):
in the in the restaurants at all. We squeeze all
of our fruit in the morning. We use blue organic agave.
We dehydrate our own fruit, so we put a lot
of of the freshest and finest and a lot of
care into our into our cocktails and our food, and
you know, so far, so good. I think that, you know,
in general, customers have really gotten us. They appreciate it,
(01:59):
and you know, to because of them, thankfully that we've
been able to continue to expand, which is which is great.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
You know, I just got back from Mexico, an island
off can Kun, and just the food there is amazing.
So you know, when I look at your website, when
I hear you talk, it just it makes me so hungry.
And man, so many of these dishes look so I mean,
they all look so good. I mean, you talk about
high quality, locally owned and family operated. When did you
(02:27):
guys start, By the way, when did you what was
the first mucha Gusto? When did it start out?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
So right? Around twenty twenty? You know, that was actually
my first venture into the restaurant business. And I literally
asked my wife in our home office, what did she
think if I opened up a restaurant? She said, sure,
what a great idea that would be. So it started
in bel Air about six years ago. And you know,
being the corporate guy was before all this, I had
a beautiful, wonderful, sixty five page business plan that had
(02:58):
a lot of expertise behind it from very specialties and
you know, everything you can think about when it comes
to developing and opening a business. And the one thing
that wasn't on any of the sixty five pages was
that there was a pandemic that was going to happen
when it was in my first restaurant, so I didn't
have that. But so we had to wait six months
because we couldn't even open the doors at that time.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
There.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
It was right during that six week period where you
couldn't even go out, if you remember. And then for
the restaurant business, it went from that to take out only.
But because we're so much about what the inside of
the restaurant looks like and the field and the environment
and the experience, we just didn't feel it was the
best way to introduce ourselves to a community. So we
held off and waited until it went to fifty percent
(03:39):
capacity to it could actually get people in the restaurant.
And that's when we opened the doors, and you know,
thankfully people came. You know, I think when you know,
finally when the restaurants opened up, I think everyone just
wanted to get out, you know, they spun to get
out of their house, and they came and then unfortunate
for us to never stop coming. And they've been a blessing,
and you know, that's why we keep doing what we're
(04:01):
doing and we keep opening more so, we're glad that
they got us. They kind of get what we're about
and they enjoy it. And it's been a great ride
so far.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Wait a minute, no experience in the restaurant business, but
you're from the corporate world. Do you mind if I
asked what you did before you open the restaurants.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Yeah, I was in biopharma and leadership for many, many years,
and so yeah, you know, Bob, when you think about it,
what does that have to do with with the restaurant business?
And at first site, you're like, well, absolutely nothing. But
a lot of the skills and competencies are absolutely transferable.
Your business acumen, your strategic development, your marketing, understanding what
(04:40):
the strengths of the business are, Understanding what the weaknesses are,
you know, kind of all those boring corporate ton terms
that really do matter and they they do mean something.
So what I didn't realize when I was in the
corporate world is I was learning skills and competencies really
that I could apply in any industry and I really
leaned on them when I opened up the restaurants, and
I got it. I'm being blatantly on honest with you.
The very first question that I googled for a restaurants
(05:04):
was how big should a restaurant be?
Speaker 1 (05:07):
What do you mean like the size of the building,
the actual restaurant inside, or.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, that's the size of it, Like how how many
square feet should it be? I mean, that's how much
knowledge I had, and that's kind of where it started.
Then I got a little bit more particular how much
of the restaurants they should be revenue generating? And how
much does it cost to open a restaurant? You know,
what are the margins? Like you start, you start to
educate yourself. But you know, on the back half of
my farmer a bio farmer career, when you know, they
(05:34):
started through a lot of downsizing. We went through an
immense amount of change, learning new teams, new products, new territories,
new competitors, and that just forced me to kind of
learn something new all the time. I had to learn
a new market, like I said, new people, and and
I really those skills is really what I applied to
(05:54):
when I opened up the restaurant.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Because I mean, the restaurant, the restaurant business, the bar business,
it's all about location, and even then it might not
be a success. So it's an incredible story to me,
especially when you start around the pandemic and you really
didn't have I mean, you have a great business knowledge,
but no restaurant background. How did you even start with
like the menu, like like the who was going who
(06:19):
created the menu and the food? Like you must have
partnered with some really smart people and talented people for that, right. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
So now we reached out to a lot of different people,
a lot of different experts, and you know, we focused
on Mexican food pretty pretty quickly because we thought that
was an area where there was a need, especially when
you get further away from urban developed you know, the
urban areas where you start to when you're further you
get away from some urban areas, you tend to find
(06:48):
more of the commercialized you know, tex mex restaurants, which
you know clearly do very well. And we wanted to,
you know, take that same kind of concept and make
it more what somebody in the city would normally and
experience and you know, and and we kind of brought
that to the you know, to the to the forefront.
So we did meet people and and you met people
that knew how to make Mexican food. Obviously looked for chefs.
(07:12):
So we had a consultant chef that we used for
a while that was actually based out of Tampa celebrity chefs.
Uh so we used them for a while a while
as well. And at the time, I remember when I
was first struggling with this, I need a chef, I
need a chef. And you know, six years later, you
can get any chef to create a menu for you.
That's actually pretty easy. That's not very that's not very
hard at all. But we have a chef that works
(07:35):
with us and has been with us really pretty much
since day one outside of the consultant chef, and he
continues to pump out new things. He's very responsive when I,
you know, not sleeping at night and I say, hey,
do this for me, and he turns it around the
next day. It's it's been a lot of fun. So yeah, yeah,
it really started with uh just finding you know, I think,
like anything else, you know, you got to be honest
(07:57):
with yourself. You know, what do I know? What am
I good at? What don't I know and who do
I need to find that can either educate me or
do that for me if it's really important.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
I mean the boom boom shrimp, tistadas that left, tustadas
and FTAs and tacos, I mean some of my favorites.
I'll pastoor is like my number one taco and I'm
running to Great Gambles as soon as you got off
work to have one of yours at Mucho Gusta. What
is the most popular dish that you guys have? What
would you say, is like you're the one that sets
(08:24):
you apart. It's like, this is like our thing.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Well, it turns out the number one thing is by
far the guacamole. Okay, hands down. We actually sell more
guacamole than all of our entrees combined. Wow, we sell
more guacamole than our appetizers and our desserts combined. So
it's a really important thing for us to get right.
One of the things that's unique about our restaurant is
we do it, depending on the restaurant, pretty much right
(08:51):
in front of you, and bel Air is usually right
in front of you. In Talson, it's right in the
dining room. Gambles it's right in the dining room as well,
so it's made fresh to order pretty much right in
front of you, depending on what location you're at. More importantly,
when it's dropped on the table, you get to do
something that's really important. You get to try it to
let us know if you like it or if you
want to change. So we provide a really unique opportunity
(09:13):
to take something that is you know that a lot
of people like but everyone and some people like more salt,
some people like left lime. We can adjust it right
to your flavor, right on the spot. And I think
that our customers really appreciate that and like that because,
like I say, we sell so much of it. It's
mind boggling how much. You know, how much walkam Moly
we sell, so the first thing that most of our
(09:35):
customers put in their mouth when they're in the restaurant.
So we take a lot of pride and making sure
that we get that right for you.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yeah, yeah, because I mean, you can believe it or not.
You can. I don't want to say screw up guacam Moly,
but there. I mean, I've had many different types and
I'm sure yours is top notch. If it's the number
one thing. So yeah, looking forward to seeing that. So
tell me what what do you see the future for
(10:05):
Mucho Gusto. Maybe another couple of restaurants. You have three
so far. I'm just going to focus on what you have.
What do you think new initiatives.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yeah, so we have a couple of future plans. So
we're looking at opening up at least one, if not
two more locations in twenty twenty six. We're hoping we're
just a few months away from announcing one of them,
so stay tuned for that. So our goals are to
open up about three, maybe more Mucho Gustos in the
(10:35):
Maryland area. We also like Florida very much, so we're
looking at the Gulf side of Florida. We have a
lot of contacts down there and a lot of relationship
down there, so we're looking to open up mucha Gusto
there as well. And then in addition to Mucho Gusto
here in Maryland, like I said, a few more, at
least maybe three more. We also have two other concepts
(10:56):
in American Concepts and at a time concept that has
not as of yet launched, that we're looking to introduce
into this market as well, so that's a little bit
longer term, but most immediate, we can look at least
one or two mich of Gustos in the Mariland area
within the next nine to twelve months.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Meanwhile, people have to get to the Bellair location Towson, Gambreles,
where I'm heading to definitely very very soon and have
some of this incredible food and of course the guacamole. Man,
you've got to be pretty proud of yourself for coming
up with this, you know, five years ago at the
(11:33):
beginning of the pandemic, and then you know, being successful
you know shortly after that, and just growing and growing.
I mean, it's an amazing story, really is. And you've
just got to be pretty happy with the way things
are going, right. I Mean, sure there's challenges, I'm sure,
but it's awesome.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah, And I'm proud mostly of our guests for believing
in us and keep coming back. Yeaven as kudos. That
means the world when you create some thing and you
see the smile and they like it and they come back. Uh,
you know, there's a lot of restaurants out there, there's
a lot of choices. Uh, you know, things are you know,
costs more money these days, people are tired of with
their money. So it is we very much appreciate when
(12:14):
somebody chooses us, uh, not just versus other restaurants, but
then also you know, think that we're worthy of you know,
them spending their money with us. So we we take
that very seriously and we're very humbled by that. Uh.
I'm proud of my staff. I'm not really one of myself.
I feel like I'm just doing what I do and
I have a great staff, a great bunch of leaders
(12:35):
that really run the show and do a great job.
And my wife is my my not just my life partner,
but she's my business partner. She left her career to
do this full time with my with my you know,
with myself, and she has been you know, she started
out as my admin and she'll still tell you she
does too much of that. She is one hundred percent
(12:58):
all in uh, very professional. Uh, just a valuable uh
you know person in our company that sits at the
table with all of us and makes the tough decisions
and makes the best decisions right along with us. So
I'm lucky to have her not to send my house,
but at the business table as well. So uh, it's
been a it's been a good team so far. So
(13:19):
what I'm most proud of is really everyone around me.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Yeah, you guys make a killer margarita there. Do you
have alcohol there? I don't even know.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Yeah, you know, we do have a little bit of
alcohol in our places, and you know, we make our
margarita is exactly the way we make them at my house.
And so, like I mentioned before, there's no simple syrup,
there's no there's no sour mix in the drinks. We
use blue organic agave to sweeten it. The line juice
is squeeze fresh in the morning. The peries for the
flavored margaritas are made in the morning, and we actually
(13:49):
use a creamum real tequila for our for our house
tequila to represent respostle that we use kind of have
a little bit more body and flavor to them that
goes really good in the margarita. So we put a
lot of pride in our margarita and bar none, you know, guacamole.
The most popular thing that's sold, you know, food wise,
the most popular drink is are margarita. And the thing
(14:10):
that we probably get the most compliments on and the
most noise around is our margarita without questions.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
What about give me an entree though, what's a popular
entree there that people love? Just to throw that in.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Cause well you yeah, you mentioned boom boom shrimp. Yeah,
so people do like that a lot. The markets seem
to love anything Beeria so Beria. So people love beerrie.
We do it a million different ways, so you could
definitely find it. If you're a beer your person, you
could definitely find an option for yourself there. Those are
(14:44):
two very very popular items right now.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
It's good stuff. Nelson. Where can people find out more
about Mucho Gusto?
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Yeah, so much gusta group dot com is our home site.
Also mucha Gusta bust the locations so mucha bel air
and mucha gusta Gambles, mucha Gusto Towson. That would get you,
you know, find us on the web or Google that way,
but honestly, you know, Bob, the best way if you
really want to kind of get the feel for us
and kind of want to know what's going on on
a daily basis. We change our menus pretty constantly by design.
(15:15):
We do that on purpose. We know you're going to
keep coming back. We want to give you new things
to try. So that really the best way to kind
of get us and kind of know what's going on
is to follow us on the socials. So on Instagram
and Facebook, we post almost every day, sometimes multiple times
a day. You'll find out kind of what we got
going on that day, what food we're offering, what drinks,
any events that are coming up. Are pretty big on events.
(15:37):
We do a lot of special events, which I think
is also pretty unique for Mexican restaurant. So anything that's
going on you can find out on our socials as well.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Nice awesome Nelson, Thanks for talking to us, give us
a little introduction on your incredible restaurant at all three
locations soon to be for really appreciate the time mucho, Gusta.
We're going Me and my wife would love the Latin
flavor Mexican food. Can't wait to try it out. Thanks
so much for the time.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yeah you as well. Thanks so much. You take care
and have a great rest of the day.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
This has been iHeartRadio's Maryland Business Spotlight.
This is iHeartRadio's Maryland Business Spotlight. Each week we hear
from one local business owner letting us know where they
are in their business journey and how they got there.
I'm here today with Nelson rho Is, owner and founder
of Muco Gusto. Nelson, I love Mucco Gusto. I have
one near me in the Gambrels area. Tell us about it.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah, so that's our newest location. By the way, we
have three, started in bel Air about six years ago.
Mucha Gusta really is just kind of simple. It's a
you know, Mexican influenced, Latin inspired dishes. You know, fresh
food is our concept, along with you know, quality craft
cocktails and a nice, fun, good, good looking environment. A
lot of people say our environments are instagrammable and the
(00:39):
experience is always a lot of fun. So, you know,
we offer you know, Mexican food, so anything from what
you're used to you know, some people like you know
tex mechs that's their version of Mexican food. We certainly
offer that. We offer more traditional Mexican food. And we
also you know, for the person that's taken one for
the team and maybe you know they're outvoted five people
(00:59):
on Mexicain. They wanted Italian. We even have something for
them as well. Uh, and we have. Yeah, We've taken
some good American dishes and putting a little bit of
a Latin flare on them. So to give you something,
you know, and maybe you'll try it and you'll find
out that, yeah, I get. So we try to We
try to get to everyone the best we can. Uh.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
You know.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
It makes us a little different, I guess, and a
little unique from a lot of the Mexican places that
you're used to, because we're basically a scratch kitchen. So
there is no microwave in our kitchen. There's no walking
freezer in our kitchen. We make everything from scratch. Our
chips are made in house, our sauces made in house,
Our hot sauces made in house. Behind the bar. There's
no simple seer or sour mix you know, in the
(01:39):
in the in the restaurants at all. We squeeze all
of our fruit in the morning. We use blue organic agave.
We dehydrate our own fruit, so we put a lot
of of the freshest and finest and a lot of
care into our into our cocktails and our food, and
you know, so far, so good. I think that, you know,
in general, customers have really gotten us. They appreciate it,
(01:59):
and you know, to because of them, thankfully that we've
been able to continue to expand, which is which is great.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
You know, I just got back from Mexico, an island
off can Kun, and just the food there is amazing.
So you know, when I look at your website, when
I hear you talk, it just it makes me so hungry.
And man, so many of these dishes look so I mean,
they all look so good. I mean, you talk about
high quality, locally owned and family operated. When did you
(02:27):
guys start, By the way, when did you what was
the first mucha Gusto? When did it start out?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
So right? Around twenty twenty? You know, that was actually
my first venture into the restaurant business. And I literally
asked my wife in our home office, what did she
think if I opened up a restaurant? She said, sure,
what a great idea that would be. So it started
in bel Air about six years ago. And you know,
being the corporate guy was before all this, I had
a beautiful, wonderful, sixty five page business plan that had
(02:58):
a lot of expertise behind it from very specialties and
you know, everything you can think about when it comes
to developing and opening a business. And the one thing
that wasn't on any of the sixty five pages was
that there was a pandemic that was going to happen
when it was in my first restaurant, so I didn't
have that. But so we had to wait six months
because we couldn't even open the doors at that time.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
There.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
It was right during that six week period where you
couldn't even go out, if you remember. And then for
the restaurant business, it went from that to take out only.
But because we're so much about what the inside of
the restaurant looks like and the field and the environment
and the experience, we just didn't feel it was the
best way to introduce ourselves to a community. So we
held off and waited until it went to fifty percent
(03:39):
capacity to it could actually get people in the restaurant.
And that's when we opened the doors, and you know,
thankfully people came. You know, I think when you know,
finally when the restaurants opened up, I think everyone just
wanted to get out, you know, they spun to get
out of their house, and they came and then unfortunate
for us to never stop coming. And they've been a blessing,
and you know, that's why we keep doing what we're
(04:01):
doing and we keep opening more so, we're glad that
they got us. They kind of get what we're about
and they enjoy it. And it's been a great ride
so far.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Wait a minute, no experience in the restaurant business, but
you're from the corporate world. Do you mind if I
asked what you did before you open the restaurants.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Yeah, I was in biopharma and leadership for many, many years,
and so yeah, you know, Bob, when you think about it,
what does that have to do with with the restaurant business?
And at first site, you're like, well, absolutely nothing. But
a lot of the skills and competencies are absolutely transferable.
Your business acumen, your strategic development, your marketing, understanding what
(04:40):
the strengths of the business are, Understanding what the weaknesses are,
you know, kind of all those boring corporate ton terms
that really do matter and they they do mean something.
So what I didn't realize when I was in the
corporate world is I was learning skills and competencies really
that I could apply in any industry and I really
leaned on them when I opened up the restaurants, and
I got it. I'm being blatantly on honest with you.
The very first question that I googled for a restaurants
(05:04):
was how big should a restaurant be?
Speaker 1 (05:07):
What do you mean like the size of the building,
the actual restaurant inside, or.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, that's the size of it, Like how how many
square feet should it be? I mean, that's how much
knowledge I had, and that's kind of where it started.
Then I got a little bit more particular how much
of the restaurants they should be revenue generating? And how
much does it cost to open a restaurant? You know,
what are the margins? Like you start, you start to
educate yourself. But you know, on the back half of
my farmer a bio farmer career, when you know, they
(05:34):
started through a lot of downsizing. We went through an
immense amount of change, learning new teams, new products, new territories,
new competitors, and that just forced me to kind of
learn something new all the time. I had to learn
a new market, like I said, new people, and and
I really those skills is really what I applied to
(05:54):
when I opened up the restaurant.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Because I mean, the restaurant, the restaurant business, the bar business,
it's all about location, and even then it might not
be a success. So it's an incredible story to me,
especially when you start around the pandemic and you really
didn't have I mean, you have a great business knowledge,
but no restaurant background. How did you even start with
like the menu, like like the who was going who
(06:19):
created the menu and the food? Like you must have
partnered with some really smart people and talented people for that, right. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
So now we reached out to a lot of different people,
a lot of different experts, and you know, we focused
on Mexican food pretty pretty quickly because we thought that
was an area where there was a need, especially when
you get further away from urban developed you know, the
urban areas where you start to when you're further you
get away from some urban areas, you tend to find
(06:48):
more of the commercialized you know, tex mex restaurants, which
you know clearly do very well. And we wanted to,
you know, take that same kind of concept and make
it more what somebody in the city would normally and
experience and you know, and and we kind of brought
that to the you know, to the to the forefront.
So we did meet people and and you met people
that knew how to make Mexican food. Obviously looked for chefs.
(07:12):
So we had a consultant chef that we used for
a while that was actually based out of Tampa celebrity chefs.
Uh so we used them for a while a while
as well. And at the time, I remember when I
was first struggling with this, I need a chef, I
need a chef. And you know, six years later, you
can get any chef to create a menu for you.
That's actually pretty easy. That's not very that's not very
hard at all. But we have a chef that works
(07:35):
with us and has been with us really pretty much
since day one outside of the consultant chef, and he
continues to pump out new things. He's very responsive when I,
you know, not sleeping at night and I say, hey,
do this for me, and he turns it around the
next day. It's it's been a lot of fun. So yeah, yeah,
it really started with uh just finding you know, I think,
like anything else, you know, you got to be honest
(07:57):
with yourself. You know, what do I know? What am
I good at? What don't I know and who do
I need to find that can either educate me or
do that for me if it's really important.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
I mean the boom boom shrimp, tistadas that left, tustadas
and FTAs and tacos, I mean some of my favorites.
I'll pastoor is like my number one taco and I'm
running to Great Gambles as soon as you got off
work to have one of yours at Mucho Gusta. What
is the most popular dish that you guys have? What
would you say, is like you're the one that sets
(08:24):
you apart. It's like, this is like our thing.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Well, it turns out the number one thing is by
far the guacamole. Okay, hands down. We actually sell more
guacamole than all of our entrees combined. Wow, we sell
more guacamole than our appetizers and our desserts combined. So
it's a really important thing for us to get right.
One of the things that's unique about our restaurant is
we do it, depending on the restaurant, pretty much right
(08:51):
in front of you, and bel Air is usually right
in front of you. In Talson, it's right in the
dining room. Gambles it's right in the dining room as well,
so it's made fresh to order pretty much right in
front of you, depending on what location you're at. More importantly,
when it's dropped on the table, you get to do
something that's really important. You get to try it to
let us know if you like it or if you
want to change. So we provide a really unique opportunity
(09:13):
to take something that is you know that a lot
of people like but everyone and some people like more salt,
some people like left lime. We can adjust it right
to your flavor, right on the spot. And I think
that our customers really appreciate that and like that because,
like I say, we sell so much of it. It's
mind boggling how much. You know, how much walkam Moly
we sell, so the first thing that most of our
(09:35):
customers put in their mouth when they're in the restaurant.
So we take a lot of pride and making sure
that we get that right for you.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yeah, yeah, because I mean, you can believe it or not.
You can. I don't want to say screw up guacam Moly,
but there. I mean, I've had many different types and
I'm sure yours is top notch. If it's the number
one thing. So yeah, looking forward to seeing that. So
tell me what what do you see the future for
(10:05):
Mucho Gusto. Maybe another couple of restaurants. You have three
so far. I'm just going to focus on what you have.
What do you think new initiatives.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yeah, so we have a couple of future plans. So
we're looking at opening up at least one, if not
two more locations in twenty twenty six. We're hoping we're
just a few months away from announcing one of them,
so stay tuned for that. So our goals are to
open up about three, maybe more Mucho Gustos in the
(10:35):
Maryland area. We also like Florida very much, so we're
looking at the Gulf side of Florida. We have a
lot of contacts down there and a lot of relationship
down there, so we're looking to open up mucha Gusto
there as well. And then in addition to Mucho Gusto
here in Maryland, like I said, a few more, at
least maybe three more. We also have two other concepts
(10:56):
in American Concepts and at a time concept that has
not as of yet launched, that we're looking to introduce
into this market as well, so that's a little bit
longer term, but most immediate, we can look at least
one or two mich of Gustos in the Mariland area
within the next nine to twelve months.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Meanwhile, people have to get to the Bellair location Towson, Gambreles,
where I'm heading to definitely very very soon and have
some of this incredible food and of course the guacamole. Man,
you've got to be pretty proud of yourself for coming
up with this, you know, five years ago at the
(11:33):
beginning of the pandemic, and then you know, being successful
you know shortly after that, and just growing and growing.
I mean, it's an amazing story, really is. And you've
just got to be pretty happy with the way things
are going, right. I Mean, sure there's challenges, I'm sure,
but it's awesome.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah, And I'm proud mostly of our guests for believing
in us and keep coming back. Yeaven as kudos. That
means the world when you create some thing and you
see the smile and they like it and they come back. Uh,
you know, there's a lot of restaurants out there, there's
a lot of choices. Uh, you know, things are you know,
costs more money these days, people are tired of with
their money. So it is we very much appreciate when
(12:14):
somebody chooses us, uh, not just versus other restaurants, but
then also you know, think that we're worthy of you know,
them spending their money with us. So we we take
that very seriously and we're very humbled by that. Uh.
I'm proud of my staff. I'm not really one of myself.
I feel like I'm just doing what I do and
I have a great staff, a great bunch of leaders
(12:35):
that really run the show and do a great job.
And my wife is my my not just my life partner,
but she's my business partner. She left her career to
do this full time with my with my you know,
with myself, and she has been you know, she started
out as my admin and she'll still tell you she
does too much of that. She is one hundred percent
(12:58):
all in uh, very professional. Uh, just a valuable uh
you know person in our company that sits at the
table with all of us and makes the tough decisions
and makes the best decisions right along with us. So
I'm lucky to have her not to send my house,
but at the business table as well. So uh, it's
been a it's been a good team so far. So
(13:19):
what I'm most proud of is really everyone around me.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Yeah, you guys make a killer margarita there. Do you
have alcohol there? I don't even know.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Yeah, you know, we do have a little bit of
alcohol in our places, and you know, we make our
margarita is exactly the way we make them at my house.
And so, like I mentioned before, there's no simple syrup,
there's no there's no sour mix in the drinks. We
use blue organic agave to sweeten it. The line juice
is squeeze fresh in the morning. The peries for the
flavored margaritas are made in the morning, and we actually
(13:49):
use a creamum real tequila for our for our house
tequila to represent respostle that we use kind of have
a little bit more body and flavor to them that
goes really good in the margarita. So we put a
lot of pride in our margarita and bar none, you know, guacamole.
The most popular thing that's sold, you know, food wise,
the most popular drink is are margarita. And the thing
(14:10):
that we probably get the most compliments on and the
most noise around is our margarita without questions.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
What about give me an entree though, what's a popular
entree there that people love? Just to throw that in.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Cause well you yeah, you mentioned boom boom shrimp. Yeah,
so people do like that a lot. The markets seem
to love anything Beeria so Beria. So people love beerrie.
We do it a million different ways, so you could
definitely find it. If you're a beer your person, you
could definitely find an option for yourself there. Those are
(14:44):
two very very popular items right now.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
It's good stuff. Nelson. Where can people find out more
about Mucho Gusto?
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Yeah, so much gusta group dot com is our home site.
Also mucha Gusta bust the locations so mucha bel air
and mucha gusta Gambles, mucha Gusto Towson. That would get you,
you know, find us on the web or Google that way,
but honestly, you know, Bob, the best way if you
really want to kind of get the feel for us
and kind of want to know what's going on on
a daily basis. We change our menus pretty constantly by design.
(15:15):
We do that on purpose. We know you're going to
keep coming back. We want to give you new things
to try. So that really the best way to kind
of get us and kind of know what's going on
is to follow us on the socials. So on Instagram
and Facebook, we post almost every day, sometimes multiple times
a day. You'll find out kind of what we got
going on that day, what food we're offering, what drinks,
any events that are coming up. Are pretty big on events.
(15:37):
We do a lot of special events, which I think
is also pretty unique for Mexican restaurant. So anything that's
going on you can find out on our socials as well.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Nice awesome Nelson, Thanks for talking to us, give us
a little introduction on your incredible restaurant at all three
locations soon to be for really appreciate the time mucho, Gusta.
We're going Me and my wife would love the Latin
flavor Mexican food. Can't wait to try it out. Thanks
so much for the time.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yeah you as well. Thanks so much. You take care
and have a great rest of the day.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
This has been iHeartRadio's Maryland Business Spotlight.
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