March 19, 2025 • 45 mins
In this episode of Restaurant Catering Smarts, Michael Attias sits down with Aron Benon, CEO of LaLa Tacos, a fast-growing taco catering business known for its high-quality food, top-notch customer service, and innovative marketing strategies.
Aron shares how he turned a small taco cart operation into a thriving business with 22 taco carts, a 5,000-square-foot catering kitchen, and a reputation for excellence. He dives into the power of SEO, rapid response times, premium presentation, and why customer experience always comes first.
In this episode, Aron breaks down:
✅ Why fast response times are the key to winning more catering business
✅ How LaLa Tacos dominates search engine rankings to drive leads daily
✅ The secret to high-end wedding and corporate catering sales
✅ Why presentation and branding matter—even in taco catering
✅ How offering free tastings and premium service builds customer loyalty
✅ The unexpected power of churros—and why they became a game-changing upsell
Aron also shares his hard-earned lessons in customer service, follow-up, and overcoming common mistakes that can sink a catering business.
🎧 Listen now and get ready to level up your catering game!
Restaurant Catering Smarts is sponsored by CaterZen Catering Software.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:31):
Hello again, I am Michael Attias, your host of Restaurant Catering Smarts and today'sguest is Aaron Bannon, CEO of La La Tacos, a fast casual brand turning heads with its
unique approach to food and community.
Aaron has led La La Tacos to rapid success, blending hospitality with innovation to createan unforgettable dining experience.
(00:52):
Under Aaron's leadership, La La Tacos has grown from a local favorite to a thrivingbusiness with a loyal customer base.
and a unique approach to food and community.
But before we get into asking Aaron a bunch of questions, let's take a minute to recognizeour sponsor.
This episode is brought to you by CaterZen Catering Software, the industry leader inhelping restaurants turn their catering chaos into calm.
(01:14):
Discover why top independent and enterprise restaurants trust CaterZen to save them timeand increase their catering sales.
Go to www.caterzen.com and sign up for a walkthrough of the software or free 30 day trial.
Now let's dive into this episode of Restaurant Catering Smarts.
Welcome, Aaron, how are you doing today?
(01:36):
Good, good.
So first question I like to ask, give me a number between one and 300.
161.
161, magic question.
Beach or mountains and why?
mountains because it's shady.
(01:58):
because it's shady.
Okay.
more beautiful.
mean, they're both great, but if I had a choice, I'd rather have a cabin in the mountainsthan the house on the beach.
I can't argue with either, anytime you're away in nature unplugged, it's a good day.
So.
know when the last time I was unplugged anywhere though.
(02:19):
Well, you know, one day you might be forced to be unplugged because it'll all implode.
Who knows?
That's could be, could be.
So tell me about La La Tacos.
How'd you start it?
What makes you different?
Okay, so we started Lala Tacos in 2019, a couple months before COVID.
(02:40):
And we were never wanting to be big, we just wanted to stay busy and create something formy wife and my son to stay busy with.
And so we started a couple months before COVID.
And then we did start out of our house, which means that...
(03:01):
able to do things that other catering, you know, I'll say legal catering companies can'tdo.
Once the governor closed down all the restaurants and all the catering businesses inSouthern California, I kept my ads on Yelp live and it was just off the hook.
(03:23):
And we told people that we'd be more than able to help them out with the delivery, but wewouldn't be able to come with a taco cart with our employees and whatnot.
so instead of our first few weeks being our first couple of months being slow, we wereable to kill it.
That's awesome.
Did you have a niche?
Like who was catering back then?
(03:44):
No one was catering back then.
So, interesting story is I have three boys, they're all in their late 20s and 30s now, andwe had a slash nanny slash.
a housekeeper that was with us for 17 years and she saved every last penny we paid her allthose years when she left us in Orange County, California.
(04:08):
She moved up to downtown and started a taco business.
She would go out to the corner and was a corner vendor and we would always visit her andsay hello.
Was it like a taco truck?
Yeah, not even a taco truck, a van that they'd set up on the corner and they're cookinginside the, you know, and we were amazed, like she doesn't like telling my wife, like, hi.
(04:32):
did this much in sales this month and did this much.
So we realized, wow, okay, you know, that's awesome for you.
So when we moved down to where we live now in Temecula, we decided that after a couple ofyears to maybe start a new business.
so since we just had a little experience from what she was telling us, no experience,rather no food business, I was in the floral business forever.
(04:58):
Okay.
which was an online floral company.
so we just started from there.
So I'm going to ask you a question that I get asked all the time, but I'm asking myself,why the taco business?
Why the taco business?
Because after three or four hours of research and checking out, I'm a big research guy, Irealized after going to multiple, multiple catering companies and websites and calling
(05:28):
people and seeing how fast the response rates were, the taco catering business was thelowest on every score.
People don't call you back.
their websites are not good.
There's very little searches on optimization.
Everything was like the lowest on the wrong.
So I thought, well, if I want to compete against somebody in the catering business, I'llcompete against other taco caterers.
(05:50):
And that's why we chose the taco.
I think we are brothers from another mother because when I opened up my corkies franchiseout of college shortly after college I did the same thing.
I played prospect.
I went to all the barbecue competitors Hey calling at 11 o'clock to order catering you geta guy in the kitchen call back.
(06:13):
Hey You get a voicemail.
I actually was an answering sir What are those things on cassette
A recording machine?
Yes.
right?
And nobody called you back, right?
And or you get a busy signal or call back after the lunch rush.
And I'm like, man, I just have to be a little bit better to crush this.
(06:35):
And I think because we had three lines and everybody knew it didn't matter what washappening.
If you're bagging food, pick up the phone.
You can call them back, but don't turn anyone down.
So kudos to you for and I'm guessing like tacos.
If I had to guess, it was probably pretty unsophisticated in Southern California, more momand pop and not that corporate mentality.
(07:03):
Yeah, there's just a couple taco caters above us at the time.
But even them, they were like, I would use a different email address and hey, inquiring,pick a date, a non-weekend date, pick a date that they probably would have available.
And I come from a business background that if I get a lead, I'm like, dang, let me stopwhatever I'm doing and contact these people.
(07:31):
And it's like, these people weren't even getting back.
back to us.
But don't you find that indicative of most businesses?
How many times have you called somebody, hey, I need someone to paint, I need someone tofix, you know, put up a fence.
And it's like, these people must be gazillionaires because they don't call me back.
They don't follow up on leads.
It's like, I'm glad you have more money than you know what to do with because I'm not inthat position yet.
(07:53):
Completely amazed that people take their time to spend money advertising and Yelp orwhatever and then you get a lead and they don't follow through I mean hello Why aren't you
following through?
Are you not in business?
So we had such a bad response rate back from other caterers really like this but thebiggest reason why we got into taco catering is because I know that
(08:23):
disparage anybody but the people I don't think caterers are like you know like you knowthey went to technical technology school or business school you know it's kind of like
something they just dropped into so we knew that search engine optimization is number onehard to learn number two expensive you want to pay an outsider to do it and number three
(08:45):
is it you have to be really patient for it to work we
long game.
It's not a short game for sure.
We kill it in SEO.
Well, I mean, that gets the phone ringing, right?
Now, how many locations do you have?
We just have one location in Temecula.
(09:06):
We have a commercial kitchen, which is 2,500 square feet.
And then I rented another 2,500 square feet next door as soon as my neighbor moved out.
So we've got about 5,000.
the 5,000 for catering.
Do you feel comfortable either sharing catering numbers or number of events or some highlevel of, we'll just say that if you've rented more space, you're crushing it.
(09:30):
Is that fair to say?
yes, well we I remember when we got our first taco cart.
My wife's car was a Sorento.
I actually had to measure her car and Then see what size taco cart we can fit in her caris a large one and so we started that way now we've got 22 taco carts and
(09:52):
It takes a lot for us to sell out.
We'll take up to nine parties on any given day for the evening So it's really hard for usto sell out a lot of our competitors You know as soon as they rent two or three times.
Oh, we're booked.
We're totally sold out so we get along
so it's a taco cart like I'm in the south they have hot dog carts down here in front ofplaces.
(10:16):
Is it almost like a hot dog cart and it's not enclosed?
It's something pop up, you know, a portable steam table type of setup.
Yeah, more or less.
I found a really good taco cart guy.
He's very expensive, but he makes the best taco carts even no matter how hard I try tofind and replace them I can't I'm the type of guy I always like a deal, but I'm not
(10:39):
willing to sacrifice too much
much degraded product because I saved $1,000.
I'm a true believer that if you are busy, your customers will appreciate the betterquality equipment and we do do that.
All of our carts are $4,000 cost and above up to $8,000.
(11:01):
Do they have wheels for that?
Okay.
we have wheels, we roll in the backyards.
And that's a lot of times when people say to us, so hey, we want to get a taco truck orlike taco truck.
What do you have in the party for construction workers?
Our taco carts will ride into your cocktail hour and your wedding and people like that.
(11:21):
That's awesome.
did, my son graduated from high school and I did a taco bar, you know, knowing foodquantities and stuff.
So part of it I did myself, some of it I bought some stuff pre done and it was a big hit.
It was awesome.
You know, taco catering is very, very popular.
(11:43):
We have eight tastings on Saturday.
We invite people to come and try our food complimentary if you submit an Insta-quote thathas a certain value on it.
In fact, our system will automatically offer you a tasting, depending on the week of theday and how much you're spending.
(12:04):
And when you talk about catering, what percentage is we'll call full service, the tacocart experience versus, hey, I just want to pick it up in aluminum pans.
I'm doing a backyard pool party for 20.
Can't really justify the cost or you can't justify rolling in for that.
What's your minimums on the full service and what percentage are you doing drop off?
(12:28):
our minimums are like the highest in the industry, I think.
For if you want us to cater for you on a Saturday, you have to spend $1,000 minimum infood.
Compared to a larger caterer, that's nothing.
And if you want it during the week, it's $800.
And I just don't, that's, we roll in with a taco cart.
(12:48):
I mean, and on top of that is our service fee and a travel fee, which is very importantthese days.
But if I wanted to get like aluminum pans with everything pre-done.
You can have, we run a delivery service.
That's another thing a lot of our competitors don't do.
They don't offer delivery, because they don't want to be obligated to their office, theirbusiness for that many hours a week.
(13:12):
So what percentage is the full service versus the drop off?
Boy, know what?
That's a good question if I knew how to If I knew how to get indicators in and figure thatout I but just by when I look at the calendars by looking at the catering the delivery
business is maybe 15 % of our business and but what But what's beautiful about that 15 %is it's like during the week when we're not doing anything It's like hey got that delivery
(13:38):
to run.
So it really keeps the lights on helps keep the lights on
Yeah, for sure.
And you know, you have a lot of these offices that only have 10, 20 people and they justwant some good food delivered to eat and they're tired of the same crud that they get.
That's very cool.
Yeah, I love a good taco.
Who doesn't love a good taco?
I mean, give me a break.
(14:00):
Now I want to fly out.
My daughter lives in LA.
Now I need to fly out and come drive down and eat your tacos now that I'm hungry.
So,
Your background, I know you've got a tech background or you did a lot of tech, you were inthe flower business.
us, you know, what lesson, tell us about the flower business and what lessons did youlearn from that that you brought into the restaurant?
(14:26):
Because I've always, there's a saying in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king,right?
So if you can take white collar principles and apply them to a blue collar business, youhave an advantage, right?
So you're taking what you learned in another industry,
answer the phone, call them back, SEO, Legion, like what are the things that you learnedover there that have been invaluable to you over here?
(14:51):
Well, one thing we know for a fact is, number one is the faster you get back to somebody,respond to their inquiry, the higher propensity is to turn that lead into an order.
Because already people have in their minds, taco caterer, flaky, whatever type of personthey may think runs this type of business.
(15:13):
So I wanted to make sure that we started this business that starting from
the how you interact with us, you, how, it's too many, too creating forums where peoplecan fill out and actually find out how much taco catering might cost them in just a minute
(15:34):
or two.
Just trying to be better than everybody.
Here's a tip for people if they advertise on Yelp.
I.
I try to respond to Yelp.
First of all, Yelp tells customers how long it usually takes to respond to inquiries.
I'm really fast.
I do it on my phone and I'll respond right away because what people don't understand iswhen people use Yelp, they automatically send out, five more leads if you don't uncheck
(16:02):
this little tiny thing.
And if you respond first, when people go to the thing, I always want to be on top.
Who contacted me first?
I don't have to search for my name at the top.
respond really really quickly and then you know it's just I almost forgot your questionnow besides responding rapidly oh
(16:25):
Well, number one, I used to own flower shops in Beverly Hills.
So we're used to catering to high-end people.
The governor of California at the time, Magic Johnson at the time.
We used to have some really, really big, huge customers.
So one thing we learned to do, whether it was a celebrity or not,
(16:45):
bend over backwards.
We want each one of our clients to think that they're the most important thing to us,which is even more important because the people that getting taco catering love it when
you roll out the red carpet for them.
I invite a lot of people to complimentary taco tastings because we're not cheating whencomes to that.
(17:08):
we decided that, you know, at first we were sending like, well, you got to spend this muchto get a taco.
tasting.
Our system will invite you if you spend enough.
But we decided that let's invite, we did a test, let's invite people to a taco tasting whoare having less people, maybe don't meet our requirements for a taco tasting.
(17:29):
But I did an experiment, I kept track because I started thinking, you know what, if I wasgetting married, I want my...
If I'm getting married, I'm a female, I'm in charge, I want them to experience the sameexperience whether I'm having 60 people or 250 people.
So I did a test where I started inviting some of these smaller weddings to taco tastingsbecause I wanted them to feel, I wanted them to feel like we offered the same things that
(17:59):
the larger spenders and stuff like that goes a long way, a long, long.
And I'm guessing you invite them out to your facility for tasting.
Yep, we have a tasting patio and we can sit three groups down at a time and we only do itWednesdays through Saturdays because we'd rather not do it on Saturdays but that's the
(18:21):
time when most people come in and when people come in for tastings on Saturdays, we makesure we have one particular thing we slow cook here and we start it early or open up on
Saturdays.
Is it barrier attackers?
We don't do burrito, but we do our carnitas.
We slow cook them and they overwhelm the whole building.
And when people walk in, that's the first thing.
My crew will say, we don't need any more carnitas.
(18:44):
I say, I got eight tastings today.
We're doing carnitas because I want them to smell those carnitas as they're walking in myfacility.
So what I'm envisioning is I roll up and it's almost like a mini reception.
I see what the cart's like, the service is like, what the, you know, what the whole setupis, right?
yeah, it's, know, closing is huge to us.
(19:08):
We didn't used to show our taco carts, but now we've got 19 taco carts in our warehouse.
So I did another experiment is when people are coming for tastings, I say, hey, come nextdoor.
Let me show you some of my taco carts.
I have a 50 % better conversion rate after showing people the extra square footage and howbig we are.
So it's just, I know that making impressions, good impressions on people, when it comestime for them to decide who are they going to use, especially for taco kids, like, did you
(19:37):
see all those carts?
Did you see all the square footage?
Did you smell how, I mean, all those little things add up to making the decision to useus.
Yeah, you know, it's funny like marketing is anything that touches the prospect right andso what i'm envisioning is Here are these brides.
They're irrational You know, they're they're crazy about a perfect wedding and they'rethinking Man, I I gotta trust aram because if he's got 19 taco trucks taco carts He's not
(20:07):
gonna flake on me, right?
It's not like he's running this out of his mother's basement and he's cooking, you know,he this is a
the real deal, like he's not gonna leave me hanging.
And even if it costs me a couple of dollars more, I'm not gonna be embarrassed at mywedding and there's no fricking food or the person's gonna show up poorly or...
Do y'all do a latte by the way?
(20:29):
Do y'all do a latte?
We do a lotes on the cob and in the cup.
We didn't use dog.
have a grill to do them on site?
I know once we get cooked off site and then we put them in a large shaver and people makelittle cups for themselves and things like that.
We used to offer just on the cob but then we realized that it's not the best looks in allthese brides and I'm there.
(20:52):
So we don't do that anymore.
We offer them the choice.
When we got in the taco catering business, we had a decision to make.
Should we go after the quinceañeras and do the sombreros and put our tortilla chipsaround?
Or should we not do that and gear towards the weddings and birthdays and celebration oflives?
(21:17):
And we decided to go in that direction.
So when people ask us, hey, do you have the Mexican flag colors for tablecloths?
No.
that's not us.
We respect that, but we don't, when we're taco catering, there's nothing that reminds youof Mexico except the food and things like that.
Yeah, and that's awesome.
(21:38):
And you know what I found is like my son got married last fall and DC and they threw anice wedding, but I was limited how many people I could bring.
And so I have a lot of friends and business associates and people in Nashville.
So said, y'all come down for a weekend.
I'll throw, I'll throw like a little open house in my house.
And we used a client here to Zeke's Mediterranean.
(21:59):
It's like, I'm not going to go hire a high end caterer to charge me $150 a head.
You know, and I think a lot the advantage guys like you have and I had in the barbecuebusiness is you can give probably a better food overall experience, right?
That people go, man, that was cool.
That was fun.
That was good food.
And it didn't cost me a million dollars because at the end of the day, people are crackingopen a beer.
(22:24):
They're having a couple of tacos.
It's all about the connection and the bonding.
Unless you're doing the Academy Awards or some white tie event.
A lot of people just want something cool and they don't want to have to excuse my French.
They don't want to dick around with it, right?
They just want, hey, for a thousand bucks, you're going to come to, I can, I can spend athousand bucks to have 50 people or whatever, and you're going to take care of them.
(22:49):
And I don't have to clean up.
I don't have to mess up.
I don't have to sit and cook for three days and everybody has a great time.
It's,
they're gonna eat a lot more if there's gonna be more ounces of food to actually consumeand it's better.
I tell people all the time when I do sales for the tastings, I tell them, I believe one ofthe only caveats to this type of catering is people do have to get up from their chairs
(23:10):
and their tables and walk over our taco cart.
But you're not paying $130 for a piece of chicken this big, airline salad, and some rollsthat were made the night before.
One thing.
it's sorry, go ahead.
One other thing before I forget, know, if there's any other caters out there, smallcaters, one thing that I've learned is when people come in for tastings with their
(23:35):
mothers, you have to pay a lot of attention to the mother.
We have found that a lot of the mothers are like, what?
I've been imagining a big throwing a big beautiful wedding for you all my life and now youwant taco catering so we did is We actually created an elevated menu.
(23:59):
It's not expensive.
It's $27.99 Okay, that's getting a little expensive for taco catering and you know whogoes for that
The mothers that are concerned it's not good enough because hey, they're offering rib eyeasada tri tip carnitas and so
a more elevated menu.
So are you doing after parties?
(24:22):
Like, you know, people throw these big weddings and then, you know, 12 o'clock, everyone'sgot a bunch of booze on their stomach.
It's like, hey, can you roll out the taco truck so people get some food?
We call it late night snack on our thing, but when I talk to people, one thing we neverever do, and I don't know if it's popular with other places, I never ask anybody their
(24:44):
budget.
I think it's a rude question.
Because a lot of caters, well, consumers, well, I'm not going to tell my budget, then he'sgoing to sell us up to our budget.
And I tell people, I don't care what your budget is.
If you hit our minimum, we're coming out.
The reason I ask you what your budget is is because...
so I can make assertions like this.
A lot of times these kids will come and say, well, we're thinking about doing a late nightsnack.
(25:07):
And I'll say, I'm sensing that you guys are on a budget.
Don't waste your money on a late night snack.
you pay me for 100 people for a late night snack, 35 or 40 people are gonna, people are,at that point they're dancing, they're sweating, and you think because they have a blood
alcohol level, by you feeding them it's gonna lower their blood alcohol level.
(25:29):
Well, and a lot of people don't know this, putting food into your body does not lower yourblood alcohol level.
Iota so please don't spend this money on late night snack put more money into your tacocatering and doing a bigger push early I mean we'll now for late night snack if you want
But if you're on a budget don't waste your money and people actually appreciate you canget much just as much adulation and thanks Convincing people not to spend money
(25:59):
unnecessarily then you Dan if you just take the order
You know, I think it gives you a lot of credibility when you tell people, you know what,if it was my event, I wouldn't spend this money because then whether they use you or not,
the perception is I need to work with these people because they're straight shooters.
They're not just trying to milk me for every dime and whether this is the right fit ornot.
(26:22):
You want to be in that light, right?
So these are just good common sense.
Everything you're talking about is just common sense sales and marketing, right?
And another good thing for anybody that's listening and starting out is we have somethingcalled the quote calculator and you basically pick your menu and if you want guac and
chips for a taco bar, how many people do you want it for?
(26:45):
Or, so some people like you said earlier, elotes.
So,
If you're having 100 people and they say we want 100 lotes, we go, no, that's too much.
We recommend 75 % of your group.
We do not like to oversell food if we know it's gonna go to waste.
And we tell people that.
Let's not be wasteful.
(27:06):
Now guac and chips, there's always people that say, look, honey, free guacamole, andthey'll take so, we recommend you go 100 % on guacamole.
And so we really try to educate people.
don't want, I don't want to make an extra $500 or $600 in sales and then bring a bunch of,because we don't use product the next day here.
If you bring back guacamole, it's not going out on the next day's party.
(27:28):
So it gets, yeah.
That's cool.
So does everything fit in the carts or some things are on tables, some things are in thecart, like the cart is like a steam table.
up to our taco carts, all the meats are there.
All the meats are there.
What we do is we hot flash it there.
You're not legally allowed to cook out in the open, open air unless you're really tentedin.
(27:54):
everything is made earlier in the day.
We keep our coolers, one of our coolers, really cold, a little above freezing soeverything stays nice and fresh.
Goes in coolers with lots of blankets and we hot flash it.
All of our meat is under flame, so it's
really stays really hot.
We're constantly rewarming tortillas as the night's going on for people that help to servethe tacos.
(28:18):
Do you have an indoor unit or is it all outdoor?
all outdoors.
When people say to us, if people tell us there's no carts allowed, then we'll do buffetservice and bring all the food hot.
And we'll bring our own little warming ovens and bring power packs to keep things warm.
We don't trust those boxes.
(28:39):
Hot boxes are nice, but if you want your food to stay piping, we like to keep it 170 inour own little ovens.
I gotcha.
So let's talk about this catering calculator, right?
It's on your website.
I can't pull up the website right now.
Tell me why you decided to do it, how it helps you.
We talked about feeding it in to your CRM.
(29:02):
yep, well, what started to happen to us probably, you know, probably six months after weopened, the search engine optimization was like really good and started getting, you know.
Started with five ten fifteen sometimes I get to 35 different customers a day Asking usfor dates throughout the year.
(29:27):
I mean heck I closed one yesterday for May of 2026 For four thousand dollars.
I was like dang, know, you're but they wanted to commit now I think people are realizingthat when it comes to Caden if you want somebody there's always somebody but there's not
always somebody good So if you want we always tell people what you booked with us orsomebody else
(29:48):
Book as soon as you can don't sit on it.
You know so So what we've done is I couldn't I?
My wife, and I had all the marketing we've got you know 12 people working here, but welike to handle our marketing We don't let anybody that caters then except my wife and I
and so We started getting so many leads a lead to us before as people riding us send us anemail say hey I'm having a party for 60 people Are you available?
(30:15):
Well?
You tell me the date.
You didn't tell me which of our menus you like.
don't all do ask if we're available on that date.
So I got tired of that.
So what I did is I created it's it's much like the menu offerings you guys have.
I believe you have something in but you need something a little cleaner and a littlefaster and and much smarter.
(30:40):
So we get quite a few leads.
We get to all in one sheet of paper.
We it's all what is we so when somebody says this we call it an instant quote And we knowtheir name their phone number their email address the date what time their party starts
and then What which of our menus they like?
(31:01):
And then there's takes them all through a section.
do you want a pico de gallo for your taco bar?
Yes.
For how many people?
60 people.
So the time we get it, I know exactly, let's say it was your, you had everybody over yourhouse.
I know exactly everything I need to know about your party.
Then I send you email say, Hey, we can do this.
I reply to it and
(31:24):
And then we ask people if they would like us to create a formal quote for them.
A formal quote is when we take all the information from the instant quote and put it intothe Cater Zen quote system.
So we found that our availability, my wife and I were spending hours and hours and makingmistakes.
(31:46):
So once we built the quote calculator, and we've updated it quite a few times, it really,really, I mean,
You know, my programmer says, maybe we should offer the quote calculator to other peopleand stuff like that.
So first of all, I don't want to get into that kind of sales.
And number two is,
The quote calculator is awesome if you've got 20, 30 leads coming in a day.
(32:11):
If you only have three or four or five people, I recommend answering the phones andtalking to those directly and trying to close as much as possible.
We do a pretty good job closing around here.
You can see that from your system, I'm sure.
But we follow up.
We do everything we can.
I mean, we really, look, you know, it's a...
(32:33):
This business is not hard, but you have to treat it like the same decisions you'd make fora big corporation.
Don't make the same mistakes that a lot of other people are like, we're just a cateringbusiness.
this guy wrote me an email on Thursday.
I'll get back to him on Saturday.
And if he's interested, he's interested.
If he's not, he's not.
Heck, we get a lot of leads that we can't do, just whether it's too small or too far orwhatever.
(32:57):
You know what I do?
Thank you very much.
Here's I'm unable to do it.
Here's a hundred dollars off your next purchase and when people send us an email sayingHey, thanks for your time.
We've decided to go with another caterer.
I used to get mad And say how can you didn't choose us, but you know what I write back nowhave an awesome event?
(33:19):
Esclamation point here's $200 off for a future purchase And I can tell you this very very
Very, very, very secretive.
Very very sort of my employees but very very few people take us up on it But I've had alot of people actually write back class act Hey, we turned your business down We didn't
(33:45):
want to go with you and you sent us a $200 coupon for the future a lot of times when it'sfor weddings I'll say here's $200 off for the baby shower, and they like that, too
Well, you know, half of them are gonna be repeat customers, so you might as well save foryour next wedding.
Yeah, I mean, you know what there I've sent out thousands of those only two people ofassets for their discount, but You know, it's like you were saying earlier about how to
(34:11):
get how how do I get back to people and stuff like that?
Let them remember us.
I don't have time we do so much I can't go back to somebody that did a quote three monthsago.
I sent them one follow-up, know, just just you know, just
And just to let you know, we're, you know, we're always developing stuff that we'reworking on a system when you send out the proposal, it's got an expiration date and it has
(34:37):
reminders and then the customer can accept it and pay for it automatically.
So, you know,
one thing we haven't been able to figure out with our quote yet, our instant quotecalculator, because we don't calculate travel fees or delivery fees or service fees.
All that comes in after, once it goes into the form.
interesting.
(34:57):
So besides the SEO, word of mouth, following up with people, what else are you doing toget the phone to ring in business?
That's you know I gotta be I'm I'm gonna knock on wood as I say this My SEO is so awesome.
I don't have to do anything else Your your assistant said hey you didn't put your yoursocial media links I told her I said I don't have time
(35:30):
post to Instagram and the post for here because I got so many leads live leads so a lot ofpeople that really work Instagram it's a lot of time it's their only form of marketing I
don't have time you know we started churro business also because so many people ask usshows now we kill it in shows it's like a whole other side business
(35:50):
So is it sort of like a churro bar for catering?
churro cart that we fry them right there, right there.
And here's another lesson to other caterers.
So when so many people were asking us for churros, I said, OK, I'll do what everybody elsedoes.
I'll buy those churros that you buy frozen.
Here's a hint.
If you ever can buy a churro that's perfectly straight, made in a factory withpreservatives, frozen, and then refried or rebaked.
(36:17):
So we tried those.
And what I do is whenever I bring a new item, get all my employees together.
We found them be chewy.
Okay, that was big now.
They say we can free-fry them So I said no we went out and bought our now we got sevenchurro machine churro carts We have churro carts.
We they wheel right into your party We do a lot of late-night snacks for them and we fryright there.
(36:41):
We use the Disney recipe and People love our churros and I probably turned down What's up?
You have an extruder that takes the batter out and drops it in the grease.
Is that how it works?
Yeah.
we turn it around like this and we cut them and they fry them right there and your partystarts smelling like a Donut shop and we sell we sell a lot of churros I turn down more
(37:08):
churro business than I can handle
So how much do charge a person for churros and what's the minimum?
Well, here's a secret.
We offer the churros for free if you spend a certain amount of money with us.
So when you go to my quote calculator, I'm not going to tell you how much because peopletest my, just like people test your system, I see testing all day long going on.
(37:31):
Good luck.
You can have the best quote calculator, but if you don't have leads, it doesn't matter.
So if you come to our site and you hit a number, a secret number, it offers youcomplimentary churros.
And if you hit enough.
people ever just contract out and say, hey, I just want you to do churros at my party?
(37:52):
all the time.
So same thousand dollar minimum, I'm guessing.
No, it's a little cheaper, but now we're not able to offer churros.
Oh, and people contact like, in fact today, some people wrote us today, 140 people forchurros next September on a Saturday.
Uh-oh, too busy.
(38:14):
And what happens is when we were first starting out, we would take churro business, takechurro business, and we're like, hey, we got a person wants to spend a $5,000.
We're like, oh no, we have two churro parties that night.
That's two crews that could rather be going out.
Right.
that.
what we did is instead of just turning down churros business, we decided we did someexperiments here.
(38:35):
And now on some of our parties, we actually make the churros in advance.
We bring out a warming oven.
And we use the churros that we made a few hours before.
So this one, not turning down any business.
But churros business, it's a very dirty job.
There's a lot of cinnamon.
There's a lot of sugar.
There's a lot of
(38:56):
these things.
It's good stuff.
was just, had dinner with a friend last night.
We were talking about, did you make, did you have cinnamon toast when you were a kid?
That's a lot.
You know what?
I don't even think my kids ever had cinnamon toast.
It's a lost delicacy in the child rearing age we're in now.
(39:20):
Exactly.
know, if I give any advice to any catering business, of course, if you're a big caterer,this advice doesn't end.
And $140 plate catering and my type of catering is two totally different things.
course.
People that are and I'm sure it's like this for barbecue and the small sushi caterers awayup people like something for free and And it's not enough.
(39:45):
don't think these days to just know that they're getting a good value What are you gonnado for free when people come to us?
They're going to other Companies too you know I mean so we offer them Like hey if youspend this much I can do this for you if you do this much I can do this for you
The only time we don't offer anything special is on Saturday nights.
(40:07):
We don't have to give discounts on Saturday nights.
you're swamped.
So, you know, we're getting close to wrapping this up.
A couple of questions.
What's next for y'all?
Are you gonna expand?
Are you gonna franchise?
Are you just happy cranking out the tacos and...
think I'm just going to re-operate the business for four more years and let my son take itover.
(40:30):
You know, I don't know.
Expanding in a taco catering business is really hard.
mean, when we have, sometimes we'll have like nine parties in the evening, but we do twoin the afternoon.
And we're talking, it's a day of chaos.
You have to, every party gets their own set of food and this one gets 40 portions of picode gallo, this one gets 40, they eat lottes and this one, so it's like, and you know what,
(40:55):
mistakes happen.
Mistakes happen if I can give one ever a little bit of advice to a smaller cater orsomething like that when we used to make mistakes or they may be the customer made a
mistake and we started out I would Defend our company and maybe be a little argumentivewith them and I've worse realize that's the worst freaking thing you can possibly do
(41:19):
Even if it wasn't your fault apologize and offer them something back that makes them happybecause bad review You can equate what a bad review does to your business And so now if we
make a mistake and depending on what it is we might offer you 200 back we might offer youfour dollars back maybe We we forgot to bring the guac and chips and you only spent two
(41:44):
hundred eighty dollars on guac and chips Not only might give you your money back.
I'm gonna give you an apology
back to you.
So if I just said, well, sorry, we forgot the guac and chips.
Of course, I'm going to give you refund.
That's not enough for people.
What are you going do for me?
You made a mistake.
What are you going to, how are you going to pay the price on that?
And once I stop being argumentive, it's health of business.
(42:07):
Don't worry about what you got to come out of your pocket.
Worry about if this person goes and gives you a bad review and maybe asks one or twofriends to give you a better view because no business can handle, can take on two or three
back to back one star reviews.
you understand the lifetime value of a customer, right?
Because how much will they spend with you in the future and how much will they refer toyou, right?
(42:28):
So you could turn that thousand dollar event into $20,000 of business or it could benegative 20,000 that you lost out on because they're like, don't use these guys, they're
schmucks.
So that's a great point.
This is just good common sense.
But you'd be surprised how many people don't have common sense in the catering business.
(42:50):
It can be so much easier.
I've always said common sense isn't common.
You know, I've definitely said that with my kids sometimes, you know, my kids went on,they got way better educations than me and they've, they've done some bonehead moves when
they were in high school.
going, how in the world did you get into Vanderbilt?
I would have never done such a thing.
(43:12):
They won't even let me wash dishes at Vanderbilt, let alone get in the university.
Any closing tips?
before we close out.
Hold on one second.
I'll do it in a second.
You know, all I can say is, is...
You know, if you want to get in the catering business, first of all, let me say this.
(43:35):
We could never do what we do if we didn't have an awesome system like CaterZen.
You know, once we got used to it and your system does a million things and I'm sureeverybody can find their like I might 15 things that I use over and over again.
Somebody else might have other 15 things they use already because there's a lot of bellsand whistles.
You can't use all the bells and whistles because you don't have time, but it's an amazingtool for us.
(44:01):
It's a streams line streamlines our system.
There's certain things we don't use for it like email notifications and things like thatbecause you have to kind of work your way backwards to do it and stuff like that, but I
would say just stick with it and don't you know, and if somebody wants your business, knowIf somebody want is contacting you Consider it like somebody dropping a $20 bill in front
(44:26):
of you You're walk around and walk around the block once then pick it up
So many contacts you watch catering you get back to them as soon as you see you is eveneven though I'm watching a movie at home If I see a good party come through I'll pause it
go to my office Send them a quick email because I know but by receiving an email on aFriday night at 8 30 at night Is better than Saturday afternoon, and I want to make first
(44:50):
impression
that is probably the best marketing you can do because they're like, hey, if they'regetting back to me, then I know they're going to take care of me.
If this is how they deal with me, then this is it sets the tone.
And yeah, that's awesome.
This has been fun.
It's been a good conversation.
Float.
Great.
I'm definitely going to have to next time I go visit my daughter, drive south and.
(45:14):
Gorge on some of your tacos and churros and.
I want to see your warehouse with all the taco carts you speak of.
So I appreciate it.
I'm going to with that I'm going to take us out and wish you a good afternoon, Aaron.
Thanks.
having me.
Hello again, I am Michael Attias, your host of Restaurant Catering Smarts and today'sguest is Aaron Bannon, CEO of La La Tacos, a fast casual brand turning heads with its
unique approach to food and community.
Aaron has led La La Tacos to rapid success, blending hospitality with innovation to createan unforgettable dining experience.
(00:52):
Under Aaron's leadership, La La Tacos has grown from a local favorite to a thrivingbusiness with a loyal customer base.
and a unique approach to food and community.
But before we get into asking Aaron a bunch of questions, let's take a minute to recognizeour sponsor.
This episode is brought to you by CaterZen Catering Software, the industry leader inhelping restaurants turn their catering chaos into calm.
(01:14):
Discover why top independent and enterprise restaurants trust CaterZen to save them timeand increase their catering sales.
Go to www.caterzen.com and sign up for a walkthrough of the software or free 30 day trial.
Now let's dive into this episode of Restaurant Catering Smarts.
Welcome, Aaron, how are you doing today?
(01:36):
Good, good.
So first question I like to ask, give me a number between one and 300.
161.
161, magic question.
Beach or mountains and why?
mountains because it's shady.
(01:58):
because it's shady.
Okay.
more beautiful.
mean, they're both great, but if I had a choice, I'd rather have a cabin in the mountainsthan the house on the beach.
I can't argue with either, anytime you're away in nature unplugged, it's a good day.
So.
know when the last time I was unplugged anywhere though.
(02:19):
Well, you know, one day you might be forced to be unplugged because it'll all implode.
Who knows?
That's could be, could be.
So tell me about La La Tacos.
How'd you start it?
What makes you different?
Okay, so we started Lala Tacos in 2019, a couple months before COVID.
(02:40):
And we were never wanting to be big, we just wanted to stay busy and create something formy wife and my son to stay busy with.
And so we started a couple months before COVID.
And then we did start out of our house, which means that...
(03:01):
able to do things that other catering, you know, I'll say legal catering companies can'tdo.
Once the governor closed down all the restaurants and all the catering businesses inSouthern California, I kept my ads on Yelp live and it was just off the hook.
(03:23):
And we told people that we'd be more than able to help them out with the delivery, but wewouldn't be able to come with a taco cart with our employees and whatnot.
so instead of our first few weeks being our first couple of months being slow, we wereable to kill it.
That's awesome.
Did you have a niche?
Like who was catering back then?
(03:44):
No one was catering back then.
So, interesting story is I have three boys, they're all in their late 20s and 30s now, andwe had a slash nanny slash.
a housekeeper that was with us for 17 years and she saved every last penny we paid her allthose years when she left us in Orange County, California.
(04:08):
She moved up to downtown and started a taco business.
She would go out to the corner and was a corner vendor and we would always visit her andsay hello.
Was it like a taco truck?
Yeah, not even a taco truck, a van that they'd set up on the corner and they're cookinginside the, you know, and we were amazed, like she doesn't like telling my wife, like, hi.
(04:32):
did this much in sales this month and did this much.
So we realized, wow, okay, you know, that's awesome for you.
So when we moved down to where we live now in Temecula, we decided that after a couple ofyears to maybe start a new business.
so since we just had a little experience from what she was telling us, no experience,rather no food business, I was in the floral business forever.
(04:58):
Okay.
which was an online floral company.
so we just started from there.
So I'm going to ask you a question that I get asked all the time, but I'm asking myself,why the taco business?
Why the taco business?
Because after three or four hours of research and checking out, I'm a big research guy, Irealized after going to multiple, multiple catering companies and websites and calling
(05:28):
people and seeing how fast the response rates were, the taco catering business was thelowest on every score.
People don't call you back.
their websites are not good.
There's very little searches on optimization.
Everything was like the lowest on the wrong.
So I thought, well, if I want to compete against somebody in the catering business, I'llcompete against other taco caterers.
(05:50):
And that's why we chose the taco.
I think we are brothers from another mother because when I opened up my corkies franchiseout of college shortly after college I did the same thing.
I played prospect.
I went to all the barbecue competitors Hey calling at 11 o'clock to order catering you geta guy in the kitchen call back.
(06:13):
Hey You get a voicemail.
I actually was an answering sir What are those things on cassette
A recording machine?
Yes.
right?
And nobody called you back, right?
And or you get a busy signal or call back after the lunch rush.
And I'm like, man, I just have to be a little bit better to crush this.
(06:35):
And I think because we had three lines and everybody knew it didn't matter what washappening.
If you're bagging food, pick up the phone.
You can call them back, but don't turn anyone down.
So kudos to you for and I'm guessing like tacos.
If I had to guess, it was probably pretty unsophisticated in Southern California, more momand pop and not that corporate mentality.
(07:03):
Yeah, there's just a couple taco caters above us at the time.
But even them, they were like, I would use a different email address and hey, inquiring,pick a date, a non-weekend date, pick a date that they probably would have available.
And I come from a business background that if I get a lead, I'm like, dang, let me stopwhatever I'm doing and contact these people.
(07:31):
And it's like, these people weren't even getting back.
back to us.
But don't you find that indicative of most businesses?
How many times have you called somebody, hey, I need someone to paint, I need someone tofix, you know, put up a fence.
And it's like, these people must be gazillionaires because they don't call me back.
They don't follow up on leads.
It's like, I'm glad you have more money than you know what to do with because I'm not inthat position yet.
(07:53):
Completely amazed that people take their time to spend money advertising and Yelp orwhatever and then you get a lead and they don't follow through I mean hello Why aren't you
following through?
Are you not in business?
So we had such a bad response rate back from other caterers really like this but thebiggest reason why we got into taco catering is because I know that
(08:23):
disparage anybody but the people I don't think caterers are like you know like you knowthey went to technical technology school or business school you know it's kind of like
something they just dropped into so we knew that search engine optimization is number onehard to learn number two expensive you want to pay an outsider to do it and number three
(08:45):
is it you have to be really patient for it to work we
long game.
It's not a short game for sure.
We kill it in SEO.
Well, I mean, that gets the phone ringing, right?
Now, how many locations do you have?
We just have one location in Temecula.
(09:06):
We have a commercial kitchen, which is 2,500 square feet.
And then I rented another 2,500 square feet next door as soon as my neighbor moved out.
So we've got about 5,000.
the 5,000 for catering.
Do you feel comfortable either sharing catering numbers or number of events or some highlevel of, we'll just say that if you've rented more space, you're crushing it.
(09:30):
Is that fair to say?
yes, well we I remember when we got our first taco cart.
My wife's car was a Sorento.
I actually had to measure her car and Then see what size taco cart we can fit in her caris a large one and so we started that way now we've got 22 taco carts and
(09:52):
It takes a lot for us to sell out.
We'll take up to nine parties on any given day for the evening So it's really hard for usto sell out a lot of our competitors You know as soon as they rent two or three times.
Oh, we're booked.
We're totally sold out so we get along
so it's a taco cart like I'm in the south they have hot dog carts down here in front ofplaces.
(10:16):
Is it almost like a hot dog cart and it's not enclosed?
It's something pop up, you know, a portable steam table type of setup.
Yeah, more or less.
I found a really good taco cart guy.
He's very expensive, but he makes the best taco carts even no matter how hard I try tofind and replace them I can't I'm the type of guy I always like a deal, but I'm not
(10:39):
willing to sacrifice too much
much degraded product because I saved $1,000.
I'm a true believer that if you are busy, your customers will appreciate the betterquality equipment and we do do that.
All of our carts are $4,000 cost and above up to $8,000.
(11:01):
Do they have wheels for that?
Okay.
we have wheels, we roll in the backyards.
And that's a lot of times when people say to us, so hey, we want to get a taco truck orlike taco truck.
What do you have in the party for construction workers?
Our taco carts will ride into your cocktail hour and your wedding and people like that.
(11:21):
That's awesome.
did, my son graduated from high school and I did a taco bar, you know, knowing foodquantities and stuff.
So part of it I did myself, some of it I bought some stuff pre done and it was a big hit.
It was awesome.
You know, taco catering is very, very popular.
(11:43):
We have eight tastings on Saturday.
We invite people to come and try our food complimentary if you submit an Insta-quote thathas a certain value on it.
In fact, our system will automatically offer you a tasting, depending on the week of theday and how much you're spending.
(12:04):
And when you talk about catering, what percentage is we'll call full service, the tacocart experience versus, hey, I just want to pick it up in aluminum pans.
I'm doing a backyard pool party for 20.
Can't really justify the cost or you can't justify rolling in for that.
What's your minimums on the full service and what percentage are you doing drop off?
(12:28):
our minimums are like the highest in the industry, I think.
For if you want us to cater for you on a Saturday, you have to spend $1,000 minimum infood.
Compared to a larger caterer, that's nothing.
And if you want it during the week, it's $800.
And I just don't, that's, we roll in with a taco cart.
(12:48):
I mean, and on top of that is our service fee and a travel fee, which is very importantthese days.
But if I wanted to get like aluminum pans with everything pre-done.
You can have, we run a delivery service.
That's another thing a lot of our competitors don't do.
They don't offer delivery, because they don't want to be obligated to their office, theirbusiness for that many hours a week.
(13:12):
So what percentage is the full service versus the drop off?
Boy, know what?
That's a good question if I knew how to If I knew how to get indicators in and figure thatout I but just by when I look at the calendars by looking at the catering the delivery
business is maybe 15 % of our business and but what But what's beautiful about that 15 %is it's like during the week when we're not doing anything It's like hey got that delivery
(13:38):
to run.
So it really keeps the lights on helps keep the lights on
Yeah, for sure.
And you know, you have a lot of these offices that only have 10, 20 people and they justwant some good food delivered to eat and they're tired of the same crud that they get.
That's very cool.
Yeah, I love a good taco.
Who doesn't love a good taco?
I mean, give me a break.
(14:00):
Now I want to fly out.
My daughter lives in LA.
Now I need to fly out and come drive down and eat your tacos now that I'm hungry.
So,
Your background, I know you've got a tech background or you did a lot of tech, you were inthe flower business.
us, you know, what lesson, tell us about the flower business and what lessons did youlearn from that that you brought into the restaurant?
(14:26):
Because I've always, there's a saying in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king,right?
So if you can take white collar principles and apply them to a blue collar business, youhave an advantage, right?
So you're taking what you learned in another industry,
answer the phone, call them back, SEO, Legion, like what are the things that you learnedover there that have been invaluable to you over here?
(14:51):
Well, one thing we know for a fact is, number one is the faster you get back to somebody,respond to their inquiry, the higher propensity is to turn that lead into an order.
Because already people have in their minds, taco caterer, flaky, whatever type of personthey may think runs this type of business.
(15:13):
So I wanted to make sure that we started this business that starting from
the how you interact with us, you, how, it's too many, too creating forums where peoplecan fill out and actually find out how much taco catering might cost them in just a minute
(15:34):
or two.
Just trying to be better than everybody.
Here's a tip for people if they advertise on Yelp.
I.
I try to respond to Yelp.
First of all, Yelp tells customers how long it usually takes to respond to inquiries.
I'm really fast.
I do it on my phone and I'll respond right away because what people don't understand iswhen people use Yelp, they automatically send out, five more leads if you don't uncheck
(16:02):
this little tiny thing.
And if you respond first, when people go to the thing, I always want to be on top.
Who contacted me first?
I don't have to search for my name at the top.
respond really really quickly and then you know it's just I almost forgot your questionnow besides responding rapidly oh
(16:25):
Well, number one, I used to own flower shops in Beverly Hills.
So we're used to catering to high-end people.
The governor of California at the time, Magic Johnson at the time.
We used to have some really, really big, huge customers.
So one thing we learned to do, whether it was a celebrity or not,
(16:45):
bend over backwards.
We want each one of our clients to think that they're the most important thing to us,which is even more important because the people that getting taco catering love it when
you roll out the red carpet for them.
I invite a lot of people to complimentary taco tastings because we're not cheating whencomes to that.
(17:08):
we decided that, you know, at first we were sending like, well, you got to spend this muchto get a taco.
tasting.
Our system will invite you if you spend enough.
But we decided that let's invite, we did a test, let's invite people to a taco tasting whoare having less people, maybe don't meet our requirements for a taco tasting.
(17:29):
But I did an experiment, I kept track because I started thinking, you know what, if I wasgetting married, I want my...
If I'm getting married, I'm a female, I'm in charge, I want them to experience the sameexperience whether I'm having 60 people or 250 people.
So I did a test where I started inviting some of these smaller weddings to taco tastingsbecause I wanted them to feel, I wanted them to feel like we offered the same things that
(17:59):
the larger spenders and stuff like that goes a long way, a long, long.
And I'm guessing you invite them out to your facility for tasting.
Yep, we have a tasting patio and we can sit three groups down at a time and we only do itWednesdays through Saturdays because we'd rather not do it on Saturdays but that's the
(18:21):
time when most people come in and when people come in for tastings on Saturdays, we makesure we have one particular thing we slow cook here and we start it early or open up on
Saturdays.
Is it barrier attackers?
We don't do burrito, but we do our carnitas.
We slow cook them and they overwhelm the whole building.
And when people walk in, that's the first thing.
My crew will say, we don't need any more carnitas.
(18:44):
I say, I got eight tastings today.
We're doing carnitas because I want them to smell those carnitas as they're walking in myfacility.
So what I'm envisioning is I roll up and it's almost like a mini reception.
I see what the cart's like, the service is like, what the, you know, what the whole setupis, right?
yeah, it's, know, closing is huge to us.
(19:08):
We didn't used to show our taco carts, but now we've got 19 taco carts in our warehouse.
So I did another experiment is when people are coming for tastings, I say, hey, come nextdoor.
Let me show you some of my taco carts.
I have a 50 % better conversion rate after showing people the extra square footage and howbig we are.
So it's just, I know that making impressions, good impressions on people, when it comestime for them to decide who are they going to use, especially for taco kids, like, did you
(19:37):
see all those carts?
Did you see all the square footage?
Did you smell how, I mean, all those little things add up to making the decision to useus.
Yeah, you know, it's funny like marketing is anything that touches the prospect right andso what i'm envisioning is Here are these brides.
They're irrational You know, they're they're crazy about a perfect wedding and they'rethinking Man, I I gotta trust aram because if he's got 19 taco trucks taco carts He's not
(20:07):
gonna flake on me, right?
It's not like he's running this out of his mother's basement and he's cooking, you know,he this is a
the real deal, like he's not gonna leave me hanging.
And even if it costs me a couple of dollars more, I'm not gonna be embarrassed at mywedding and there's no fricking food or the person's gonna show up poorly or...
Do y'all do a latte by the way?
(20:29):
Do y'all do a latte?
We do a lotes on the cob and in the cup.
We didn't use dog.
have a grill to do them on site?
I know once we get cooked off site and then we put them in a large shaver and people makelittle cups for themselves and things like that.
We used to offer just on the cob but then we realized that it's not the best looks in allthese brides and I'm there.
(20:52):
So we don't do that anymore.
We offer them the choice.
When we got in the taco catering business, we had a decision to make.
Should we go after the quinceañeras and do the sombreros and put our tortilla chipsaround?
Or should we not do that and gear towards the weddings and birthdays and celebration oflives?
(21:17):
And we decided to go in that direction.
So when people ask us, hey, do you have the Mexican flag colors for tablecloths?
No.
that's not us.
We respect that, but we don't, when we're taco catering, there's nothing that reminds youof Mexico except the food and things like that.
Yeah, and that's awesome.
(21:38):
And you know what I found is like my son got married last fall and DC and they threw anice wedding, but I was limited how many people I could bring.
And so I have a lot of friends and business associates and people in Nashville.
So said, y'all come down for a weekend.
I'll throw, I'll throw like a little open house in my house.
And we used a client here to Zeke's Mediterranean.
(21:59):
It's like, I'm not going to go hire a high end caterer to charge me $150 a head.
You know, and I think a lot the advantage guys like you have and I had in the barbecuebusiness is you can give probably a better food overall experience, right?
That people go, man, that was cool.
That was fun.
That was good food.
And it didn't cost me a million dollars because at the end of the day, people are crackingopen a beer.
(22:24):
They're having a couple of tacos.
It's all about the connection and the bonding.
Unless you're doing the Academy Awards or some white tie event.
A lot of people just want something cool and they don't want to have to excuse my French.
They don't want to dick around with it, right?
They just want, hey, for a thousand bucks, you're going to come to, I can, I can spend athousand bucks to have 50 people or whatever, and you're going to take care of them.
(22:49):
And I don't have to clean up.
I don't have to mess up.
I don't have to sit and cook for three days and everybody has a great time.
It's,
they're gonna eat a lot more if there's gonna be more ounces of food to actually consumeand it's better.
I tell people all the time when I do sales for the tastings, I tell them, I believe one ofthe only caveats to this type of catering is people do have to get up from their chairs
(23:10):
and their tables and walk over our taco cart.
But you're not paying $130 for a piece of chicken this big, airline salad, and some rollsthat were made the night before.
One thing.
it's sorry, go ahead.
One other thing before I forget, know, if there's any other caters out there, smallcaters, one thing that I've learned is when people come in for tastings with their
(23:35):
mothers, you have to pay a lot of attention to the mother.
We have found that a lot of the mothers are like, what?
I've been imagining a big throwing a big beautiful wedding for you all my life and now youwant taco catering so we did is We actually created an elevated menu.
(23:59):
It's not expensive.
It's $27.99 Okay, that's getting a little expensive for taco catering and you know whogoes for that
The mothers that are concerned it's not good enough because hey, they're offering rib eyeasada tri tip carnitas and so
a more elevated menu.
So are you doing after parties?
(24:22):
Like, you know, people throw these big weddings and then, you know, 12 o'clock, everyone'sgot a bunch of booze on their stomach.
It's like, hey, can you roll out the taco truck so people get some food?
We call it late night snack on our thing, but when I talk to people, one thing we neverever do, and I don't know if it's popular with other places, I never ask anybody their
(24:44):
budget.
I think it's a rude question.
Because a lot of caters, well, consumers, well, I'm not going to tell my budget, then he'sgoing to sell us up to our budget.
And I tell people, I don't care what your budget is.
If you hit our minimum, we're coming out.
The reason I ask you what your budget is is because...
so I can make assertions like this.
A lot of times these kids will come and say, well, we're thinking about doing a late nightsnack.
(25:07):
And I'll say, I'm sensing that you guys are on a budget.
Don't waste your money on a late night snack.
you pay me for 100 people for a late night snack, 35 or 40 people are gonna, people are,at that point they're dancing, they're sweating, and you think because they have a blood
alcohol level, by you feeding them it's gonna lower their blood alcohol level.
(25:29):
Well, and a lot of people don't know this, putting food into your body does not lower yourblood alcohol level.
Iota so please don't spend this money on late night snack put more money into your tacocatering and doing a bigger push early I mean we'll now for late night snack if you want
But if you're on a budget don't waste your money and people actually appreciate you canget much just as much adulation and thanks Convincing people not to spend money
(25:59):
unnecessarily then you Dan if you just take the order
You know, I think it gives you a lot of credibility when you tell people, you know what,if it was my event, I wouldn't spend this money because then whether they use you or not,
the perception is I need to work with these people because they're straight shooters.
They're not just trying to milk me for every dime and whether this is the right fit ornot.
(26:22):
You want to be in that light, right?
So these are just good common sense.
Everything you're talking about is just common sense sales and marketing, right?
And another good thing for anybody that's listening and starting out is we have somethingcalled the quote calculator and you basically pick your menu and if you want guac and
chips for a taco bar, how many people do you want it for?
(26:45):
Or, so some people like you said earlier, elotes.
So,
If you're having 100 people and they say we want 100 lotes, we go, no, that's too much.
We recommend 75 % of your group.
We do not like to oversell food if we know it's gonna go to waste.
And we tell people that.
Let's not be wasteful.
(27:06):
Now guac and chips, there's always people that say, look, honey, free guacamole, andthey'll take so, we recommend you go 100 % on guacamole.
And so we really try to educate people.
don't want, I don't want to make an extra $500 or $600 in sales and then bring a bunch of,because we don't use product the next day here.
If you bring back guacamole, it's not going out on the next day's party.
(27:28):
So it gets, yeah.
That's cool.
So does everything fit in the carts or some things are on tables, some things are in thecart, like the cart is like a steam table.
up to our taco carts, all the meats are there.
All the meats are there.
What we do is we hot flash it there.
You're not legally allowed to cook out in the open, open air unless you're really tentedin.
(27:54):
everything is made earlier in the day.
We keep our coolers, one of our coolers, really cold, a little above freezing soeverything stays nice and fresh.
Goes in coolers with lots of blankets and we hot flash it.
All of our meat is under flame, so it's
really stays really hot.
We're constantly rewarming tortillas as the night's going on for people that help to servethe tacos.
(28:18):
Do you have an indoor unit or is it all outdoor?
all outdoors.
When people say to us, if people tell us there's no carts allowed, then we'll do buffetservice and bring all the food hot.
And we'll bring our own little warming ovens and bring power packs to keep things warm.
We don't trust those boxes.
(28:39):
Hot boxes are nice, but if you want your food to stay piping, we like to keep it 170 inour own little ovens.
I gotcha.
So let's talk about this catering calculator, right?
It's on your website.
I can't pull up the website right now.
Tell me why you decided to do it, how it helps you.
We talked about feeding it in to your CRM.
(29:02):
yep, well, what started to happen to us probably, you know, probably six months after weopened, the search engine optimization was like really good and started getting, you know.
Started with five ten fifteen sometimes I get to 35 different customers a day Asking usfor dates throughout the year.
(29:27):
I mean heck I closed one yesterday for May of 2026 For four thousand dollars.
I was like dang, know, you're but they wanted to commit now I think people are realizingthat when it comes to Caden if you want somebody there's always somebody but there's not
always somebody good So if you want we always tell people what you booked with us orsomebody else
(29:48):
Book as soon as you can don't sit on it.
You know so So what we've done is I couldn't I?
My wife, and I had all the marketing we've got you know 12 people working here, but welike to handle our marketing We don't let anybody that caters then except my wife and I
and so We started getting so many leads a lead to us before as people riding us send us anemail say hey I'm having a party for 60 people Are you available?
(30:15):
Well?
You tell me the date.
You didn't tell me which of our menus you like.
don't all do ask if we're available on that date.
So I got tired of that.
So what I did is I created it's it's much like the menu offerings you guys have.
I believe you have something in but you need something a little cleaner and a littlefaster and and much smarter.
(30:40):
So we get quite a few leads.
We get to all in one sheet of paper.
We it's all what is we so when somebody says this we call it an instant quote And we knowtheir name their phone number their email address the date what time their party starts
and then What which of our menus they like?
(31:01):
And then there's takes them all through a section.
do you want a pico de gallo for your taco bar?
Yes.
For how many people?
60 people.
So the time we get it, I know exactly, let's say it was your, you had everybody over yourhouse.
I know exactly everything I need to know about your party.
Then I send you email say, Hey, we can do this.
I reply to it and
(31:24):
And then we ask people if they would like us to create a formal quote for them.
A formal quote is when we take all the information from the instant quote and put it intothe Cater Zen quote system.
So we found that our availability, my wife and I were spending hours and hours and makingmistakes.
(31:46):
So once we built the quote calculator, and we've updated it quite a few times, it really,really, I mean,
You know, my programmer says, maybe we should offer the quote calculator to other peopleand stuff like that.
So first of all, I don't want to get into that kind of sales.
And number two is,
The quote calculator is awesome if you've got 20, 30 leads coming in a day.
(32:11):
If you only have three or four or five people, I recommend answering the phones andtalking to those directly and trying to close as much as possible.
We do a pretty good job closing around here.
You can see that from your system, I'm sure.
But we follow up.
We do everything we can.
I mean, we really, look, you know, it's a...
(32:33):
This business is not hard, but you have to treat it like the same decisions you'd make fora big corporation.
Don't make the same mistakes that a lot of other people are like, we're just a cateringbusiness.
this guy wrote me an email on Thursday.
I'll get back to him on Saturday.
And if he's interested, he's interested.
If he's not, he's not.
Heck, we get a lot of leads that we can't do, just whether it's too small or too far orwhatever.
(32:57):
You know what I do?
Thank you very much.
Here's I'm unable to do it.
Here's a hundred dollars off your next purchase and when people send us an email sayingHey, thanks for your time.
We've decided to go with another caterer.
I used to get mad And say how can you didn't choose us, but you know what I write back nowhave an awesome event?
(33:19):
Esclamation point here's $200 off for a future purchase And I can tell you this very very
Very, very, very secretive.
Very very sort of my employees but very very few people take us up on it But I've had alot of people actually write back class act Hey, we turned your business down We didn't
(33:45):
want to go with you and you sent us a $200 coupon for the future a lot of times when it'sfor weddings I'll say here's $200 off for the baby shower, and they like that, too
Well, you know, half of them are gonna be repeat customers, so you might as well save foryour next wedding.
Yeah, I mean, you know what there I've sent out thousands of those only two people ofassets for their discount, but You know, it's like you were saying earlier about how to
(34:11):
get how how do I get back to people and stuff like that?
Let them remember us.
I don't have time we do so much I can't go back to somebody that did a quote three monthsago.
I sent them one follow-up, know, just just you know, just
And just to let you know, we're, you know, we're always developing stuff that we'reworking on a system when you send out the proposal, it's got an expiration date and it has
(34:37):
reminders and then the customer can accept it and pay for it automatically.
So, you know,
one thing we haven't been able to figure out with our quote yet, our instant quotecalculator, because we don't calculate travel fees or delivery fees or service fees.
All that comes in after, once it goes into the form.
interesting.
(34:57):
So besides the SEO, word of mouth, following up with people, what else are you doing toget the phone to ring in business?
That's you know I gotta be I'm I'm gonna knock on wood as I say this My SEO is so awesome.
I don't have to do anything else Your your assistant said hey you didn't put your yoursocial media links I told her I said I don't have time
(35:30):
post to Instagram and the post for here because I got so many leads live leads so a lot ofpeople that really work Instagram it's a lot of time it's their only form of marketing I
don't have time you know we started churro business also because so many people ask usshows now we kill it in shows it's like a whole other side business
(35:50):
So is it sort of like a churro bar for catering?
churro cart that we fry them right there, right there.
And here's another lesson to other caterers.
So when so many people were asking us for churros, I said, OK, I'll do what everybody elsedoes.
I'll buy those churros that you buy frozen.
Here's a hint.
If you ever can buy a churro that's perfectly straight, made in a factory withpreservatives, frozen, and then refried or rebaked.
(36:17):
So we tried those.
And what I do is whenever I bring a new item, get all my employees together.
We found them be chewy.
Okay, that was big now.
They say we can free-fry them So I said no we went out and bought our now we got sevenchurro machine churro carts We have churro carts.
We they wheel right into your party We do a lot of late-night snacks for them and we fryright there.
(36:41):
We use the Disney recipe and People love our churros and I probably turned down What's up?
You have an extruder that takes the batter out and drops it in the grease.
Is that how it works?
Yeah.
we turn it around like this and we cut them and they fry them right there and your partystarts smelling like a Donut shop and we sell we sell a lot of churros I turn down more
(37:08):
churro business than I can handle
So how much do charge a person for churros and what's the minimum?
Well, here's a secret.
We offer the churros for free if you spend a certain amount of money with us.
So when you go to my quote calculator, I'm not going to tell you how much because peopletest my, just like people test your system, I see testing all day long going on.
(37:31):
Good luck.
You can have the best quote calculator, but if you don't have leads, it doesn't matter.
So if you come to our site and you hit a number, a secret number, it offers youcomplimentary churros.
And if you hit enough.
people ever just contract out and say, hey, I just want you to do churros at my party?
(37:52):
all the time.
So same thousand dollar minimum, I'm guessing.
No, it's a little cheaper, but now we're not able to offer churros.
Oh, and people contact like, in fact today, some people wrote us today, 140 people forchurros next September on a Saturday.
Uh-oh, too busy.
(38:14):
And what happens is when we were first starting out, we would take churro business, takechurro business, and we're like, hey, we got a person wants to spend a $5,000.
We're like, oh no, we have two churro parties that night.
That's two crews that could rather be going out.
Right.
that.
what we did is instead of just turning down churros business, we decided we did someexperiments here.
(38:35):
And now on some of our parties, we actually make the churros in advance.
We bring out a warming oven.
And we use the churros that we made a few hours before.
So this one, not turning down any business.
But churros business, it's a very dirty job.
There's a lot of cinnamon.
There's a lot of sugar.
There's a lot of
(38:56):
these things.
It's good stuff.
was just, had dinner with a friend last night.
We were talking about, did you make, did you have cinnamon toast when you were a kid?
That's a lot.
You know what?
I don't even think my kids ever had cinnamon toast.
It's a lost delicacy in the child rearing age we're in now.
(39:20):
Exactly.
know, if I give any advice to any catering business, of course, if you're a big caterer,this advice doesn't end.
And $140 plate catering and my type of catering is two totally different things.
course.
People that are and I'm sure it's like this for barbecue and the small sushi caterers awayup people like something for free and And it's not enough.
(39:45):
don't think these days to just know that they're getting a good value What are you gonnado for free when people come to us?
They're going to other Companies too you know I mean so we offer them Like hey if youspend this much I can do this for you if you do this much I can do this for you
The only time we don't offer anything special is on Saturday nights.
(40:07):
We don't have to give discounts on Saturday nights.
you're swamped.
So, you know, we're getting close to wrapping this up.
A couple of questions.
What's next for y'all?
Are you gonna expand?
Are you gonna franchise?
Are you just happy cranking out the tacos and...
think I'm just going to re-operate the business for four more years and let my son take itover.
(40:30):
You know, I don't know.
Expanding in a taco catering business is really hard.
mean, when we have, sometimes we'll have like nine parties in the evening, but we do twoin the afternoon.
And we're talking, it's a day of chaos.
You have to, every party gets their own set of food and this one gets 40 portions of picode gallo, this one gets 40, they eat lottes and this one, so it's like, and you know what,
(40:55):
mistakes happen.
Mistakes happen if I can give one ever a little bit of advice to a smaller cater orsomething like that when we used to make mistakes or they may be the customer made a
mistake and we started out I would Defend our company and maybe be a little argumentivewith them and I've worse realize that's the worst freaking thing you can possibly do
(41:19):
Even if it wasn't your fault apologize and offer them something back that makes them happybecause bad review You can equate what a bad review does to your business And so now if we
make a mistake and depending on what it is we might offer you 200 back we might offer youfour dollars back maybe We we forgot to bring the guac and chips and you only spent two
(41:44):
hundred eighty dollars on guac and chips Not only might give you your money back.
I'm gonna give you an apology
back to you.
So if I just said, well, sorry, we forgot the guac and chips.
Of course, I'm going to give you refund.
That's not enough for people.
What are you going do for me?
You made a mistake.
What are you going to, how are you going to pay the price on that?
And once I stop being argumentive, it's health of business.
(42:07):
Don't worry about what you got to come out of your pocket.
Worry about if this person goes and gives you a bad review and maybe asks one or twofriends to give you a better view because no business can handle, can take on two or three
back to back one star reviews.
you understand the lifetime value of a customer, right?
Because how much will they spend with you in the future and how much will they refer toyou, right?
(42:28):
So you could turn that thousand dollar event into $20,000 of business or it could benegative 20,000 that you lost out on because they're like, don't use these guys, they're
schmucks.
So that's a great point.
This is just good common sense.
But you'd be surprised how many people don't have common sense in the catering business.
(42:50):
It can be so much easier.
I've always said common sense isn't common.
You know, I've definitely said that with my kids sometimes, you know, my kids went on,they got way better educations than me and they've, they've done some bonehead moves when
they were in high school.
going, how in the world did you get into Vanderbilt?
I would have never done such a thing.
(43:12):
They won't even let me wash dishes at Vanderbilt, let alone get in the university.
Any closing tips?
before we close out.
Hold on one second.
I'll do it in a second.
You know, all I can say is, is...
You know, if you want to get in the catering business, first of all, let me say this.
(43:35):
We could never do what we do if we didn't have an awesome system like CaterZen.
You know, once we got used to it and your system does a million things and I'm sureeverybody can find their like I might 15 things that I use over and over again.
Somebody else might have other 15 things they use already because there's a lot of bellsand whistles.
You can't use all the bells and whistles because you don't have time, but it's an amazingtool for us.
(44:01):
It's a streams line streamlines our system.
There's certain things we don't use for it like email notifications and things like thatbecause you have to kind of work your way backwards to do it and stuff like that, but I
would say just stick with it and don't you know, and if somebody wants your business, knowIf somebody want is contacting you Consider it like somebody dropping a $20 bill in front
(44:26):
of you You're walk around and walk around the block once then pick it up
So many contacts you watch catering you get back to them as soon as you see you is eveneven though I'm watching a movie at home If I see a good party come through I'll pause it
go to my office Send them a quick email because I know but by receiving an email on aFriday night at 8 30 at night Is better than Saturday afternoon, and I want to make first
(44:50):
impression
that is probably the best marketing you can do because they're like, hey, if they'regetting back to me, then I know they're going to take care of me.
If this is how they deal with me, then this is it sets the tone.
And yeah, that's awesome.
This has been fun.
It's been a good conversation.
Float.
Great.
I'm definitely going to have to next time I go visit my daughter, drive south and.
(45:14):
Gorge on some of your tacos and churros and.
I want to see your warehouse with all the taco carts you speak of.
So I appreciate it.
I'm going to with that I'm going to take us out and wish you a good afternoon, Aaron.
Thanks.
having me.
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