Austin Samuelson With Tacos 4 Life

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Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today on the show we have Austin Samuelsson and he is with tacos 4 life. Welcome.

Austin Samuelson: [00:00:44] Hey, Lee. Thanks for having me on.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:45] Well, I am excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about tacos for life. How are you serving, folks?

Austin Samuelson: [00:00:52] Yeah. So tacos for life. We’re a restaurant. But really, what we are is we’re an organization that fights hunger. We we do that by serving really great tacos. We have over 14 chef inspired tacos on the menu. Everything from your traditional, you know, fajita chicken tacos, beef tacos, steak tacos, all those things to, you know, more fun and adventurous versions of tacos like a Korean barbecue, barbeque steak taco or a Hawaiian shrimp tacos. So we we sell great tacos, but we do that so that we can help be a part of fighting world hunger. Every taco salad rice bowl quesadilla that we sell, we donate a meal to a child in need to a third party organization called Feed My Starving Children. So that is that’s what we’re all about here at Tacos for life and what gets us excited every day.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:45] Now, how did that like? What’s the genesis of the idea of not only just selling great food, but also partnering where you can help other people in the manner that you do?

Austin Samuelson: [00:01:56] Yeah, absolutely. So really, it’s you know, if you if you rewound our story 12 years ago, my wife and I, Ashton, we we had 12 years ago, we had never worked in a restaurant, never, never had aspirations to own a restaurant, you know, just wasn’t on our radar. You know, we were living life. I was working in commercial real estate. She was teaching school, but we heard something one day back in two thousand nine. We heard a statistic then that 18000 children die every day from starvation. And you know, we knew hunger is a problem. We knew starvation as a problem. But for some reason when we heard that it just both struck a chord with us and we also heard. Rich Stearns was the CEO of World Vision, a very large organization. Does relief work all over the world? He was sharing these statistics at a church that we were attending. And he said two other things. He said, You know, our planet produces enough food to feed everyone. And then the third thing he said was this number of eighteen thousand children dying every day from starvation. It can be zero, but it’s going to take us doing something about it. And that’s really what started Ashton and I on this journey.

Austin Samuelson: [00:03:19] It didn’t happen immediately, but it started over the next couple of years, us really questioning, OK, how could we be a part of helping feed kids? How can we be a part of seeing a day when no child has to die from starvation? And it led us down this path to opening a restaurant? And really, it came about because at that time and still they’re very popular, but Toms shoes was was really taken off. We had a pair of shoes asking it to everybody, you know, seeing everybody’s talking about them, you know? And so here’s the funny part having never worked in a restaurant before we both we thought, Hey, if if a shoe company can donate a pair of shoes for every shoe they sell, how hard could it be for a restaurant to do that? You know, it can’t be that hard, right? And that’s that that whole question is what sparked this journey. We’ve since learned now, 10 years later, that it is a little bit hard to do, but it’s possible and and and it’s totally worth it. And we’re getting to be a part of helping feed kids all over the world. Take us for life now now.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:27] But what brought you to tacos like it could have been, you know, a fine dining and doing this like, well, how did you choose the kind of the the route you’ve chosen regarding this type of a restaurant and specifically tacos?

Austin Samuelson: [00:04:40] Yeah. So the the simplest answer is we love to eat tacos. We we we lived in Southern California for a time. We’re both from Arkansas. That’s where we’re based out of now. But we just love Mexican food. We love tacos. We love that with tacos. You can you can really. You can go any direction you want from a culinary flavor profile standpoint. You can do your traditional stuff, but then you can you can get pretty creative. And my wife, she’s a she’s a chef and she says, you know, hey, the tortilla is just a blank canvas, you know, and you can do a lot of fun things with it. And you know, we love tacos and tacos are popular. They’re a crowd pleaser, you know, so it’s worked really well. We did. Just to note, we did actually start with a pizza restaurant before tacos for life. That’s where we first tested the mission out and. And we transitioned over to tacos, really just trying to continue to tweak the model and see what would work, and we found that with with the taco concept, with tacos for life, there was just an excitement. It really met a need in Arkansas. There wasn’t a lot of taco concepts at the time when we first started in 2014 with tacos for life. And so those those kind of things all coming together is what brought us here.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:57] Now what was kind of the clue that you were on to something?

Austin Samuelson: [00:06:01] Oh my gosh. Well, you know, with the pizza restaurant, we had just a lot of a lot of support in the community and even around the state, people loving the idea of being able to donate a meal or being able to help participate in doing good, but that people talked about that. Ok, and we’re a restaurant, right? So the first day I remember after we opened tacos for life, we had a line out the door could just it never stopped all day. It poured as a thunderstorm, lightning and storms all day long, and the line just never went away and people were really raving about the food along with the mission. And I think that’s when we closed the doors that that night. I remember looking at Ashton and saying, OK, we can do something with this mission, and tacos for life is going to be it. And it just there’s just something about it. After that first day, just the response we got from the guest who was unlike anything we’d experienced at the pizza restaurant. And it was this great combination of just an excitement for the food just doing something unique there, along with a really tangible mission of getting to help other people.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:12] Now did you build this to franchise it? Was that always the the thing or did it start out of, Hey, we’ll start this one, maybe grow a little bit and see where it takes us? Or were you always did you always have your eye on being a franchise or no?

Austin Samuelson: [00:07:26] Yeah, franchising really came about after a few years in and and we really. So yeah, we started early. We didn’t have a big grand plan of what we were going to do. We just it’s kind of one day at a time and seeing how we could feed more kids and we knew if we opened more restaurants, we could feed more children. You know, every restaurant provides about a thousand meals a day. So. So there was a motivation to grow and open more restaurants. But I didn’t know anything about franchising. And, you know, opening more company restaurants was simple. You know, from that standpoint, franchising was this big thing. We just we didn’t really understand not having any experience with it. So. But after a couple of years, we we got to know some folks and some people that had a lot of experience with franchising. And we we kind of we did our first round of franchising and back in twenty seventeen and we got our PhD and got all the documents together. And we franchised three locations and in two of them went really well and one of them didn’t it? And we learned a whole lot and we really kind of pause there. We stop franchising. We, you know, we still had all the documents, still had everything together. We worked really hard with the two franchisees that remained and got great relationships with them.

Austin Samuelson: [00:08:43] They’re still on the team and talk to them multiple times a week. And they’re they’re great folks and great partners to the organization and the mission. But what we really did is we kept opening company restaurants and really what the mindset of like, OK, we really for this to work with this mission, we’ve got to get just we’ve got to get the model really locked in and we’ve got to get it nailed down for this to be something that that works from a franchising standpoint. So we continue to kind of watch our franchisees continue to talk to them, get feedback. We continue to improve the model as we get more efficient on the company restaurants and spent about three years doing that. And then last year, in 2020, right before this whole pandemic started, we decided, Hey, we’re ready to franchise. So obviously got had different plans then in that moment. But but that’s that’s kind of the full circle, the whole franchising. It was we started out and we we learned a lot of great things. And but now we’re all in and we’ve got eight franchise locations open and quite a few more on the in the pipeline. And it’s really the way that we see the mission being furthered, having kind of watched and learned from our first couple of franchisees.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:58] Now any advice for other emerging franchise owners when it comes to doing your due diligence, building the right systems and knowing when it’s the right time to pull the trigger to, you know, really put on a different hat, right? Because Tacos for Life operator is different than the Tacos for Life franchise or that’s training people to be successful in their market. It’s a little different kind of mission and objective from that standpoint.

Austin Samuelson: [00:10:25] Yeah, absolutely. I think you said it, you know, it’s it’s all about the systems and the processes. And it’s all about what what I had to learn as a founder was, OK, what what are the, you know, we call them strategic anchors, OK, but what are those like sacred cows? These are these are we don’t compromise in these areas. And what are the things that we’re going to be willing to move on? And then how do we also create a relationship so that we can learn from our franchisees? And that’s what I love most about franchising is this element of like, Hey, we’re we’re in this together and we’re a team that’s working to improve tacos for live together so that we can feed more kids so that they can bring more profit down to their restaurants. So it’s we’re fully aligned in that. And I think understanding that relationship on, Hey, what are we not going to compromise on and what are we willing to move and do? And then and then what’s the right format in relationship to to have a full cycle kind of feedback loop? You know, those three things I just have been incredibly important to us

Lee Kantor: [00:11:31] Now is the ideal franchisee different today than it was, you know, the first time he took a bite of this apple?

Austin Samuelson: [00:11:41] Yeah, absolutely. So the here’s what we say today. We say it’s a two part. It’s a two part formula for us with our franchisees or prospective franchisees. They have to be here because of the mission. They have to want to be with us for life because we have this, this, this opportunity to help and starvation, that’s got to be while they’re here. That’s going to be their motivating factor. But quite honestly, it can’t outweigh their desire to run a profitable, successful restaurant. So those have to match up fully. Where we’ve gotten ourselves in trouble or where we found there’s misalignment is when one outweighs the other. So, you know, obviously it’s easy to look at the profit side and say, Well, if someone is only concerned about, you know, bringing as much profit to the bottom line as possible, then the mission is going to get in the way of that right. So it’s easy to pick on that side of the equation. But we’ve also learned that it’s just as easy to pick on the other side. If if you’re all about the mission and you’re not, you’re not running your business as efficiently as possible. If you’re not constantly working every day to improve and to get better and to serve the guests better, then the mission will sputter as well. So for us, it’s a two part formula. You’ve got to be here because of the mission and you’ve got to be here because you want to run a really great restaurant.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:04] So but those are two equal like those aren’t one doesn’t take precedent over the other.

Austin Samuelson: [00:13:10] Yeah, exactly. Maybe when we first started, you know, we would say, OK, we’re going to tilt a little heavier towards the mission, you know? But the reality of it is so that we can feed kids. We have to be we have to run a very efficient business because that’s it’s taking a hit. When we donate a meal, every time we sell a taco, that’s coming right off the top line. We treat that as a cost of good. So, you know, you could say we’re operating a bit of a disadvantage compared to the competitors because of that extra cost in our in our P&L.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:40] And and now that you kind of the model is is more baked and it seems to be growing well. Is it easier to kind of identify people, though, when they when you have a mission at the top of, you know, as the true north or as part of the true north of the organization, do those people kind of present themselves to you in a little more efficient fashion than just somebody saying, Oh, I have a taco restaurant will take anybody that can, you know, fog a mirror and write a check, right?

Austin Samuelson: [00:14:11] Yeah. No, I actually think it does. I think, you know, I don’t know what the, you know, would be normal for everybody else, but we get a ton of applications in and we we talk to a lot of people. And the ratio of those that come in for an interview is there’s a lot of applications and very few people that come in. And it’s not because we’re being ultra picky, it’s just we’re able to both see and people select out when when they understand the impact of the mission, you know, and they say, you know, Oh, that sounds nice, but that’s that’s more than what I’m willing to invest, you know, to to make this mission thing possible. And then for us as well, we’re able to understand, hey, now this person’s motivation isn’t right. Or maybe they don’t have the skill set to run a restaurant and operate more competitively than they would a normal taco restaurant that doesn’t have, you know, a mission involved. So yeah, I think I think we have to talk to more people, perhaps. But I do think it makes it a little easier for us to see, OK, who is in it for the right reason and who’s not, you know, it’s not just who’s got the biggest checkbook in our, you know, where others might fill that way.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:19] So now we’ve talked a lot about the mission and how integral that is to the brand. But can you talk also about just the food part like you have to have good product and. Tacos that people like, so it seemed like you’re doing that as well.

Austin Samuelson: [00:15:34] Yeah, absolutely. And that was one of the big learnings we took out of our first our first restaurant in town. You know, the the mission is great. But if the food and the service isn’t equally as great, if we’re not the best in each community that we’re in, then the mission won’t. It’ll just be a nicety, you know? So yeah, we work very hard. We’re a. We make everything from scratch in our kitchens. We make everything to order. We put a ton of pride in that and we put a lot of effort into, you know, the doing the little things right when it comes to the food and really teaching, you know, young guys and girls how to come in and cook and do things that a lot of places don’t do. You know, we’re, as you know, maybe the guys down the street or cutting a plastic bag open and, you know, dumping it on a steam table where we’re making we’re making that beef from scratch. And it’s a long process. And it’s it’s the way you would, the way you’d want to do it at home, you know. We have a fried chicken taco, which is probably my favorite Taco Lee, and that is Ashton’s grandma’s fried chicken recipe, you know? And so that’s not just near and dear to our heart, and that’s not just special, but we cook it the way her grandma cooked it.

Austin Samuelson: [00:16:43] You know, we go that extra step and we we fry it the right way. And so that’s that is just so important. And then on the service side, too, we really pride ourselves and having that extra level, I think we get a leg up on the competition because of our mission. You know, there’s a kind of an extra something we get to talk with our guests about. We’re kind of, you know, we’re on the same side of the table. Our team members are with us because they’re excited about helping and starvation, our guests that understand the mission. You know, hopefully they get it right away. Hopefully, they know about it before they walk in the door. But if they don’t, you know, we’re working hard to tell them about it. And so there’s an extra level of connection that we get to have and and we talk about, Hey, how are we building relationships and providing really friendly service as opposed to just moving people through a line and making it transactional?

Lee Kantor: [00:17:30] So now what’s next for you? Obviously continued growth, but do you have any plans you can share for twenty twenty two?

Austin Samuelson: [00:17:39] Yeah. So, you know, like I mentioned earlier, we really kind of got geared back up on the franchising side of things in 2020 and then got a little bit distracted, as did everybody else. Did you know, for much of the year? But fortunately, we still had some success. We sold some franchise, brought some new partners in and opened a few locations, opened a couple more this year. And then we’ve really just been filling up the pipeline. So we’ll probably see 10 or so locations open next year. And we’ve got about 12 or so, I guess, on the books for twenty twenty three at this point. And we’re just we’re, you know, the thing for us, Lee, is we’re we still we still are taking it slow, you know, because we want we want each franchisee that we bring on board to. We want them to be successful and for them to this to be something that they’re proud of and that really makes sense for them and their families. So it’s a it’s a slower process, probably the most, but it’s a it’s a good process and and we work really hard to be intentional throughout. But yeah, for the next, we’re about to open location number 20 and then hopefully twenty four months from now, we’ve more than doubled that and we’re getting to feed a ton of kids every day. So this year will have provided a little over five million meals. So when you put that in perspective, it’s it’s just exciting to see every time we open a location, you know, every every three locations we open, we provide a million meals a year and that’s what that’s really what motivates us here.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:14] And have you kind of defined that ideal franchisee in terms of not only the mission, they have to obviously have a desire for the mission, but are they people who are transitioning out of a corporate job into this? Or are they, you know, owners of other complementary brands that are just adding tacos for life to their portfolio? Are you clear on who that ideal franchisee looks? You know what they look like?

Austin Samuelson: [00:19:41] Yeah, I think we’re we’re more of the folks that are transitioning in their careers into us. We don’t we don’t have a lot of other. We don’t have any franchisees or anybody that’s in the pipeline that has other concepts in their brand, in their portfolio, not because we’re not opposed to it, but because we’re we’re just a different animal than what you would get shopping on the franchise. You know, what else is out there franchising wise? So now our ideal person is someone that’s, you know, hey, they’re ready to either either they have been self-employed or they’re ready to take that leap and be their own boss and be in control of their future. But they also want to do something really meaningful with that through our mission and through the environment that they can create with. Their team, so we work hard on now we’re on the the SBA list for preferred partner with them, and so we work hard to, you know, if if someone needs some help on the funding side, but they have the the experience, they have the the passion. We work really hard to get them matched up from a banking and funding standpoint so that they can they can join and be part of this.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:55] And there are certain regions you’re targeting as you grow and kind of take over the world. Or are you? Is it kind of a free for all you’ll take anybody from wherever they are?

Austin Samuelson: [00:21:06] You know, right now we’re really focused on the southeast United States and a little bit into the lower Midwest. And what I mean by that is kind of Oklahoma to Kansas City, to St. Louis and then down throughout. We’re over in North Carolina and on down. So that’s that’s kind of our, of course, we’re in Arkansas here. So that’s kind of if you took a go across the United States from that standpoint, that’s that’s really where we’re focusing our efforts right now on growing

Lee Kantor: [00:21:35] Well, if somebody wants to learn more, is there a website for them to go and check you out?

Austin Samuelson: [00:21:40] Yeah, absolutely. So go to taco’s for life. We actually just updated the website a few months ago. It’s it is beautiful. A couple of fun things on there. You can learn all about our mission and understand really the dynamics of how it works. We work with a great organization called Feed My Starving Children. There’s they and us. We work really hard to provide really great transparency in how the giving works, so you can see all that there. You can track the milk counts per location. So all that is there. And then, of course, to learn about franchising. We have a great section there under the franchising tab, and you’re going to probably learn everything you need to know. And then we’re, of course, always available to talk so well.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:23] Thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Austin Samuelson: [00:22:29] Well, thanks for thanks for having me on.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:31] All right, this is Lee Kantor, we’ll see you all next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.