Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Carol Masser.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Business Week Extra. It's our weekly
Speaker 1: podcast and this is where we give you one of
Speaker 1: our full interviews of the week. This podcast features a
Speaker 1: conversation about Tacos. First, it was a food truck in
Speaker 1: Austin that it was all over Texas, and now Torches
Speaker 1: Tacos is spreading it across the nation with a little
Speaker 1: help from private equity. My co host Jason Kelly had
Speaker 1: a chance to catch up with the company's CEO, g J. Hart.
Speaker 1: All Right, So, GJ, great to be with you. Tell
Speaker 1: me about the opportunity that you saw coming to Torches. Well,
Speaker 1: having been in the restaurant business a long long time
Speaker 1: and having you know, the opportunity to see so many
Speaker 1: restaurant concepts and being a part of growing several concepts.
Speaker 1: When I saw the Torches concept, tried the food, met
Speaker 1: the people, and I think about the opportunity around America,
Speaker 1: I was like, Wow, this is pretty special. I've seen
Speaker 1: lots of things. This is probably the biggest opportunity I've
Speaker 1: seen in a long long time, not just nationally but internationally.
Speaker 1: And why because I mean Texas Road has I mean
Speaker 1: I could go through it. C p K. I mean,
Speaker 1: you've worked at so many big concepts, Tacos is not
Speaker 1: an obvious one necessarily. I love tacos, but you know,
Speaker 1: why is this one so special? That's part of the answer,
Speaker 1: because the no one's really taken tacos and being able
Speaker 1: to take it in a big scale and do it
Speaker 1: with product that is all freshly made from scratch, with
Speaker 1: all those flavor profiles, that's part of the answer. And
Speaker 1: so when I saw that and see, you know, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, in the restaurant business, it's
Speaker 1: all about food, and forget that many times it's about
Speaker 1: the food at the end of the day. And so
Speaker 1: this food is really really special. And Mike, the original
Speaker 1: chef and founder, is just an incredible guy with does
Speaker 1: an incredible job with flavors. And again, I've seen a
Speaker 1: lot of things. This one's pretty special and I love
Speaker 1: growing things. Yeah, and why hasn't somebody been able to
Speaker 1: do this with tacos? Well, I think the problem is
Speaker 1: the positioning. In my opinion, it's either sort of going
Speaker 1: down to be very value orning or very upscale, and
Speaker 1: we fit a completely different niche. We're sort of edgy
Speaker 1: in our approach. We have we appeal to UM a
Speaker 1: pretty wide demographic and so UM, you know, and we
Speaker 1: fit a price point that somewhere in between. And I
Speaker 1: think that's part of it. And then our fast casual
Speaker 1: environment is one that UM isn't just fast casual because
Speaker 1: we actually have full service bars UM in our newer
Speaker 1: restaurants as well, and so we have what I would
Speaker 1: call fast casual plus, which is another added benefit. And
Speaker 1: so you wrap all that together and I think no
Speaker 1: one's really been m edgy enough to try that. And
Speaker 1: so here we are. There's a couple of smaller players
Speaker 1: that are doing an incredible job. But I hate to
Speaker 1: say it, we're small today, but we're sort of big
Speaker 1: in that space. Yeah, So talk to me about private
Speaker 1: equity because this isn't necessarily a place of growth equity. Really,
Speaker 1: General Atlantic, your owner, uh, sort of presents that. What
Speaker 1: sort of element does that bring in and what was
Speaker 1: the what was your attractiveness or trepidation in going into
Speaker 1: a private equity owned enterprise. Well, in the case of
Speaker 1: General Atlantic, their incredible partner partners, they have a unique
Speaker 1: culture in terms of how they approach investing, in particularly
Speaker 1: growth investing, So that made me very comfortable. I'm fortunate
Speaker 1: enough to have worked with several other great equity private
Speaker 1: equity firms, and you know, I have to say they're
Speaker 1: just the special group. Also, the original five founders are
Speaker 1: still involved in the business with me, and so um,
Speaker 1: you know, you take the mix of those two things.
Speaker 1: It just attracted me because there's a there's a very
Speaker 1: special dynamic heritage and soul to a growth investor that's
Speaker 1: got a unique and special culture. Those things marry up
Speaker 1: really really well. And for me loving to grow things,
Speaker 1: this was a great opportunity to combine those things and
Speaker 1: quite frankly have an opportunity to do something special. So
Speaker 1: what does growth look like from here? You've you've been
Speaker 1: in the midst of a relatively rap that the expansion
Speaker 1: geographically here in the United States. Tell me where you
Speaker 1: are now, where you're going. So we're in three states today,
Speaker 1: which Texas, Oklahoma, and Colorado. We are opening up Arkansas
Speaker 1: in a very short while. We will then be going
Speaker 1: to Louisiana, Kansas and mushroom out from those markets where
Speaker 1: we are strong today. Our goal over the next five
Speaker 1: years is to open, another hundred restaurants will be in
Speaker 1: seventeen states at that point. Mushroom out. And part of
Speaker 1: that is where a word of mouth, where this cult
Speaker 1: like following with high frequency. We want to continue to
Speaker 1: build that demand as we go into these markets, versus
Speaker 1: a strategy that skips around the country or sort of says, well,
Speaker 1: you know, we're the big boys. Now we can are
Speaker 1: big girls and we can go into this market. And
Speaker 1: so we're looking at it like, let's continue to grow
Speaker 1: out from where we are. So by the time we
Speaker 1: hit urban markets, they'll know and have heard of torches.
Speaker 1: Even though you may have heard of torches. You know,
Speaker 1: here in Manhattan, no one knows the torches. So by
Speaker 1: the time we get here, we'll have people that know
Speaker 1: who we are. So that's the strategy. What worries you
Speaker 1: the most about that expansion strategy is that economic? Is
Speaker 1: it the ability to scale? What is it? Uh? The
Speaker 1: answer is really simple. It's getting the right people doing
Speaker 1: the right things. We have a partnership model, which is unique,
Speaker 1: and so finding restaurant operators that feel apart, have a voice,
Speaker 1: that really have the ability to run their own businesses
Speaker 1: with our support. That's the key to this business and
Speaker 1: so finding those kind of people, creating environments where they
Speaker 1: understand our mission and vision and our overall purpose and
Speaker 1: really taking that ride along. That's my biggest not that
Speaker 1: when you say worry, that's my biggest worry. It's my
Speaker 1: biggest obligation to the brand for it to be able
Speaker 1: to sustain itself and be able to reach full potential.
Speaker 1: So that's I can't control economic conditions, all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff from a real estate perspective and all those
Speaker 1: other things that you have to do. We've got a
Speaker 1: great team, and the good news is we drive a
Speaker 1: lot of traffic to centers, and so a lot of
Speaker 1: developers are looking forward to us because we'll drive you know,
Speaker 1: six to ten thousand guests a week to a restaurant.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of folks. So you understand the consumer
Speaker 1: very well, especially the restaurant consumer and customer as a
Speaker 1: consumer feeling at this moment, how confident you know? We're
Speaker 1: long into this economic uh cycle, this economic growth cycle.
Speaker 1: How they doing. I think they're doing pretty well. I mean,
Speaker 1: if if our volumes are any indication, they're doing extremely well.
Speaker 1: But I would say that we have a pretty approachable
Speaker 1: price point, So we're value think about a three dollar
Speaker 1: and seventy five cents for a taco. That's a pretty
Speaker 1: good sized taco and pretty much can make a meal.
Speaker 1: That's that has the broad opportunity across many spectrums. So um, again,
Speaker 1: I think just from from our perspective and the feedback
Speaker 1: we're getting there doing, they're they're feeling pretty good. G J. Hart,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. You're quite welcome. That was g J. Hart,
Speaker 1: the CEO of Torchis Tacos. You've been listening to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week Extra, be sure to tune into Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week Radio Live Monday through Friday at tpm Wall Street Time.
Speaker 1: Right here on Bloomberg Radio. I'm Carol Masser, and this
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg