Ponchos Tacos

Ponchos Tacos: This was like maybe the craziest dopamine hit of my life.

Ponchos Tacos: We set up and within, what is it, like an hour and a half?

Andrew: An hour and a half.

Ponchos Tacos: All the food we prepped for the weekend, we’re done.

Andrew: This is Poncho’s Tacos, a taco stand business run by four friends where they sold out on their first day.

Ponchos Tacos: I’m ready, I’m ready.

Ponchos Tacos: Game face is on.

Andrew: And they’re only 19.

Andrew: You’re actually 19 right now.

Ponchos Tacos: I’m just a child.

Andrew: But despite their young age, they still made tacos that left me speechless.

Andrew: Mmm. Oh my god.

Andrew: You gotta try this.

Andrew: However, with rapid success comes many unexpected challenges.

Ponchos Tacos: We were like, “Dude, this is way too stressful. I don’t know if we want to do this anymore.” Like at least for me, I was like, “This is a lot of work. Are we going to be able to sustain like this?” And it really tested their friendship.

Ponchos Tacos: Yeah, you know they say, “Never get into business with your friends.” I need you to serve, bro.

Ponchos Tacos: Yeah, I know. I can’t, though. There’s no…

Andrew: I’ll keep my friend in mind.

Andrew: But at the end of the day, seems to be all worth it.

Ponchos Tacos: In the moment, it’s like this is the worst thing, but when you look back on it, it’s like, that’s pretty cool that we were able to do that.

Ponchos Tacos: I do it for the love of the game, you know?

Ponchos Tacos: I put my heart and soul into this, man.

Andrew: My name is Andrew, and today we’ll be exploring a taco stand business and trying birria tacos for the first time.

Andrew: Enjoy the video.

Andrew: What’s unique about this business is that it’s actually a vendor at the Richmond Night Market.

Andrew: And for those of you who don’t know, the Richmond Night Market is an annual event that takes place from summer to the middle of October and it gives people an opportunity to come and try a variety of different foods as well as vendors for them to sell their food but what’s even more unique about this business is that they sell Mexican cuisine at a place where primarily all the food is Asian which may be why they’re so successful but that’s enough yapping from me, let’s go and check out the stand Alright guys, I have a confession to make.

Andrew: I’ve never had birria tacos.

Ponchos Tacos: What?

Ponchos Tacos: This guy, this guy.

Ponchos Tacos: Dude, there’s no way.

Andrew: I have to try some.

Andrew: Can I get three birria tacos?

Ponchos Tacos: Let’s get him three tacos.

Ponchos Tacos: Let’s get him three tacos.

Andrew: First off, what is birria taco?

Ponchos Tacos: Birria taco, so birria is a type of Mexican slow cooked beef.

Ponchos Tacos: We stew our meat, chuck and short rib are the two cuts we use.

Ponchos Tacos: We stew them in a pot full of various Mexican chilies for four to five hours.

Ponchos Tacos: Then we bring it here, we shred it up, and we put it in a corn tortilla.

Ponchos Tacos: Little cheese, little onion, cilantro.

Ponchos Tacos: Serve it with the consomme.

Andrew: Okay.

Ponchos Tacos: Pretty simple.

Andrew: I’m hungry already.

Andrew: Can you show me how to make it?

Ponchos Tacos: All right, so we’re dipping it here.

Ponchos Tacos: This is the fat rendered from the top of the meat.

Ponchos Tacos: There we go, we got some cheese here.

Ponchos Tacos: Get it nice and cheesy, OD cheese.

Ponchos Tacos: OD cheese.

Ponchos Tacos: OD cheese.

Ponchos Tacos: OD cheese.

Ponchos Tacos: Doesn’t that look delicious?

Ponchos Tacos: It looks delicious.

Ponchos Tacos: There you go. Your first set of birria tacos.

Ponchos Tacos: You want to finish it all for him, Brandon?

Ponchos Tacos: There you go. We take the broth cup, we fill it up, we call it a day.

Ponchos Tacos: Make sure it’s filled up almost fully.

Andrew: Okay. Get the napkins. Yeah, it’s going to be dirty, eh?

Ponchos Tacos: Yeah.

Andrew: Oh my god.

Ponchos Tacos: There you have it.

Andrew: All right, let’s try it.

Andrew: Birria taco from Ponchos Tacos, the first time.

Andrew: Okay, we got what?

Andrew: You dip it, what is this?

Samson: Yeah, you dip it.

Andrew: You dip it, okay.

Andrew: All right, let’s go.

Andrew: Let’s do it.

Samson: Oh.

Samson: Oh wee, that cheese pull.

Andrew: Oh my God.

(chewing)

Samson: Oh wow.

Andrew: You gotta try this.

Andrew: You gotta try this.

Samson: All right, give me, let me eat it.

Andrew: You gotta try this.

Andrew: Dip it.

Samson: Yeah.

Andrew: Ready?

Samson: Yeah, I’m ready.

Andrew: Ah, I’m getting burnt by the sauce.

Andrew: That’s hot.

Samson: Mm.

Samson: Oh my god.

Mm, mm.

Okay, okay, oh.

Oh.

Mm.

(laughing)

Mm.

Let’s go.

Andrew: How’s that taste?

So good.

Andrew: So flavorful.

Yeah, oh.

Andrew: Ponchos Tacos, birira, they did not disappoint.

Andrew: It’s actually really good. Yeah right? Like I’m not even, this is not for the camera, it’s really good.

Andrew: Oh my god. Is this healthy?

Samson: Oh heck no. It’s so good.

Andrew: Tell me about the story of how you guys came together.

Andrew: What pushed you guys to start and like why tacos?

Ponchos Tacos: Yeah, so pretty much like I’ve known Matt since I was about five years old.

Ponchos Tacos: We went to elementary school together and then I met Kenito in high school and about maybe grade nine when he came to Hugh Boyd.

Ponchos Tacos: But like before all that, I’ve known Brandon ’cause our brothers just play hockey together and I used to see him around the rink Right when we were probably what, eight, 10 years old?

Andrew: That’s like 10 years ago, so yeah.

Ponchos Tacos: Yeah, a while ago, right?

Ponchos Tacos: And then I literally didn’t hear from this guy for like eight years again, like literally like lost full contact.

Ponchos Tacos: Like 20, like the end of 2020, we like reconnected at London Drugs Warehouse.

Ponchos Tacos: Yeah, I got a job at London Drugs Warehouse and I was like, dude, is that Brandon?

Ponchos Tacos: Like that’s the iPad kid from like,

Ponchos Tacos: (all laughing)

Ponchos Tacos: I was like, dude, that’s Brandon, like what’s up?

Ponchos Tacos: And then we ended up talking, like kind of becoming friends again.

Ponchos Tacos: And then I introduced him to like Kenito and Matt and like we all kind of like started hanging out and stuff towards the end of high school.

Andrew: What was that moment of like, let’s start a taco stand at Night Market.

Andrew: Like what was that discussion like?

Andrew: How did that come up?

Ponchos Tacos: This is the summer, we just graduated from high school.

Ponchos Tacos: I think it was like in August.

Ponchos Tacos: We were like thinking, well, what are we gonna do now that we’re like out of high school?

Ponchos Tacos: I knew what I was doing, like I was gonna go to school, but we were, yeah, one day in my backyard, registration for the night market was coming up soon.

Ponchos Tacos: I think it might’ve been Kenito or Mikito.

Ponchos Tacos: We said like, “Yeah, we should start a night market stand.” ‘Cause it’s one of those- – low overhead, right?

Ponchos Tacos: Yeah, like it’s one of those opportunities where it’s like lower overhead compared to like a conventional, like sorta either restaurant, catering business, or something like that.

Ponchos Tacos: Mainly noticed that, hey, there’s no good Mexican food in Richmond.

Ponchos Tacos: Our first event, which was Detail Garage.

Ponchos Tacos: That’s where we met Danny.

Ponchos Tacos: That’s where we met Danny.

Andrew: Okay.

Ponchos Tacos: So Danny, like closest friend, he works at a detail garage shop selling car details stuff.

Ponchos Tacos: And they have a monthly meeting, or like a car meet, called Rides and Coffees.

Ponchos Tacos: And he saw that we were starting up ponchos and he invited us to the Rides and Coffees.

Ponchos Tacos: And we thought it would be a great idea to test out our product for the first time.

Ponchos Tacos: We bought our first little bit of equipment to do that.

Ponchos Tacos: We had to buy a couple of tables, flat top grill, a tent, all that.

Ponchos Tacos: Just to go there and set up.

Ponchos Tacos: That’s when we started, the main investment started.

Ponchos Tacos: It was good reviews.

Ponchos Tacos: We ended up selling out that night.

Ponchos Tacos: After that was, I think, night market sign up.

Ponchos Tacos: So once we saw the product sells, we’re confident we’re going into this.

Ponchos Tacos: It was two weeks later or something, we signed up for the night market.

Andrew: So you guys graduated high school and you weren’t sure what to do?

Ponchos Tacos: Yeah, at least for me and him.

Ponchos Tacos: We’re kind of like we’re not exactly you know scholars academic like we were like you know what your business. Let me uh let me try something else before I get into school. You know. So I mean both of our families have been like part of like business. So we kind of like grew up around it. like if we’re gonna do it anytime, like what we were 17. So yeah like now is the time right?

Andrew: So there were four high school buddies that decided “Why not?” to start a taco business? I love it But it was time for them to enter the market, more specifically the night market.

Andrew: And they had no idea what to expect.

Ponchos Tacos: The first weekend.

Ponchos Tacos: Oh my god, dude.

Ponchos Tacos: Oh my god, this is what happened.

Ponchos Tacos: Alright, so we have no idea going into the first weekend.

Ponchos Tacos: How much do we need to make?

Ponchos Tacos: What is business like?

Ponchos Tacos: Especially Mexican food.

Ponchos Tacos: Are we going to be busy?

Ponchos Tacos: We set up and within, what is it, like an hour and a half?

Ponchos Tacos: An hour and a half.

Ponchos Tacos: All the food we prepped for the weekend, we’re done.

Andrew: The demand for the birria tacos was beyond what they had imagined.

Andrew: But not only that, they had gotten the attention of traditional media networks, which added even more pressure to their new business.

Ponchos Tacos: I like decide like it’d be a good idea if we reach out to like local news and like different like establishments like like hey like we’re young entrepreneurs like we’re the youngest in night market history if you want to come out like we’d love to have you to like maybe like a bunch of different news stations and then pretty much like we sell out and then The next morning, I get an email back.

Ponchos Tacos: They’re like, “Yeah, we’re coming today.

Ponchos Tacos: We’re gonna film some B-roll, CTV.” And I was like, “Oh, dude.” Now we have to prep from like maybe 10am to 2pm, 3pm, rush the night market setup, and then do like…

Ponchos Tacos: ‘Cause we have to be there early to film for B-roll stuff.

Ponchos Tacos: Yeah.

Ponchos Tacos: And then we sell it again in like an hour and a half or two hours.

Ponchos Tacos: So we’re like, “Dude, this is outrageous.

Ponchos Tacos: This is good, but it’s also a lot of work.” And then the next morning, CTV’s like, “Yeah, okay, we’re gonna do an interview now.” like our entire day is like screwed.

Ponchos Tacos: We have an interview at 8am, we have to prep from like 10am to 2am and then go back and then sell it again.

Ponchos Tacos: And then, Kenito did his magic.

Ponchos Tacos: I took a bit from like the CTV special, like the intro of the lady.

Ponchos Tacos: Five teens are becoming the talk of the town.

Ponchos Tacos: Took that and then I just put a bunch of photos, literally took me like three minutes to make, upload it, you know, get ready to go to work.

Ponchos Tacos: Then I went to sleep, woke up.

Ponchos Tacos: Dude, like, literally half a million views, like, insane.

Ponchos Tacos: I posted the video on Instagram as well.

Ponchos Tacos: Like, everyone’s like posting it on their story, like, insane response.

Ponchos Tacos: Yeah, the response was wild.

Ponchos Tacos: Especially because like, that first weekend was just like, just like, we were like, dude, this is way too stressful.

Ponchos Tacos: Like, I don’t know if we want to do this anymore.

Ponchos Tacos: Like, at least for me, I was like, this is a lot of work.

Ponchos Tacos: Like, are we going to be able to sustain like this?

Ponchos Tacos: And then that happened, we’re like, okay, like, this is like maybe the craziest, like, dopamine hit of my life.

Ponchos Tacos: Like this whole weekend was just like just like crazy hectic and then that to top it off was like insane.

Ponchos Tacos: Number five number five Okay, let’s talk money What’s the startup cost?

Ponchos Tacos: Yeah between like 30 and 40 grand for the night market for sure What’s the monthly cost to run the business?

Ponchos Tacos: Like at least for input costs like food and all that probably range between 10 to 15 thousand. Yeah.

Andrew: What is your monthly revenue?

Ponchos Tacos: It’s a range as well. Yeah, yeah, so peak season with a higher revenue like our costs are like so much higher. Especially when we have events. Because like say if we do do like 50,000 or something in a month, right?

Ponchos Tacos: Most likely we’ll have an event and the event will cost 4,000 to be in right? And then you got to give them a piece or something. It’s like you think like oh we’d make way more but our margins slim when we do more usually yeah I’m like a high-end like maybe like 50 or something-on the high end but like on the low end it’ll be like dude like quarter.

Ponchos Tacos: You never know right, you never know. It’s really up to Brandon if he wants to dial in the marketing like we can we can do as much as we want.

Ponchos Tacos: What you just put them on the spot like that.

Ponchos Tacos: Because we’re making more money because of Brandon this year.

Ponchos Tacos: Trying to do what I can 15 to 50,000 Yeah that’s a good rate it’s pretty well raised.

Ponchos Tacos: But you’ll see it even in like a conventional restaurant where you have like some dead months you have some big peak months Yeah business, this is not the business you want to be in if you want to get rich Like if you want make a bunch of money like don’t do food do this yeah nah but like it’s fun you like food like it’s fun do it yeah but if you want to make money go like sell like drop ship drop your yeah so like so like fans on Amazon or something what is the profit margin?

Ponchos Tacos: Profit margins on food, the generic or like the general sort of principle that you want to do is at least a third of the cost where that’s your input cost for the food, rest should be labor and then the rest is profit.

Ponchos Tacos: You want to keep it around like 30%.

Andrew: Ponchos Tacos is doing pretty well, especially for just a couple of kids.

Ponchos Tacos: I’m just a child.

Andrew: But I wanted to figure out why.

Andrew: There’s over a hundred and thirty vendors at the night market every single year. What makes them stand out?

Ponchos Tacos: I think that what differentiates us is that we do put like a lot of time into marketing and stuff, right?

Ponchos Tacos: Like that’s like one of our main focuses.

Ponchos Tacos: That’s what I was gonna say because there’s some stands are obviously not gonna name anyone but there is some stands were like They don’t really try with like their social media like at all.

Ponchos Tacos: They kind of they kind of don’t have social media. Yeah, they either they either they don’t have it. Or they just don’t really try and there is some there is some that do try that.

Ponchos Tacos: Chef James He’s probably like the biggest stand of the night market. Hey, his social media is really good. They’re always posting the busiest stands I feel like are the ones that actually try when like for things that aren’t at the night market. Like your social media. Like putting your name out there. Bao Buns. They’re right next to us. They they put in a lot of time in their social media as you can tell.

Andrew: So they focus on social media and efforts beyond the night market, building a brand for themselves.

Andrew: But another thing that I wonder about is how they deal with conflicts. With Ponchos Tacos having four co-founders with four different personalities, tensions must arise. And how do they resolve that? And more importantly, how does it affect their friendship?

Ponchos Tacos: Yeah, you know they say never get into business with your friends I don’t necessarily disagree, but it’s worked for us actually Are you guys able to share?

Andrew: What were some of like conflicts that you guys have what would you do it about?

Andrew: Is it like some common problems that would keep rising?

Ponchos Tacos: Yeah mostly it would just be like me and him kind of take care of like Some more like the financial things like if we’re doing like pricing or like our margins or like things like that sure so like we’d clash with Matt at least a lot early on because Matt’s obviously cook right?

Ponchos Tacos: A chef?

Ponchos Tacos: Well yeah just like like common like disagreements on like what like on like pricing on like input costs on like equipment just like because we each have our own opinion right. At the end of the day we want to like find the opinion we’re all aware that we want to find the like option that’s like everyone can like be happy with.

Ponchos Tacos: Sometimes that happens sometimes that didn’t happen that when sometimes that didn’t happen obviously like the disagreement broke out.

Andrew: How do you usually resolve it?

Ponchos Tacos: Resolve it? Sleep it off. Wake up.

Ponchos Tacos: Wake it off. New day.

Ponchos Tacos: Just man shit. Sleep it off and don’t discuss it ever again.

Ponchos Tacos: Besides like when it’s a if it’s like a real problem It’s not like a like a situational thing, okay Like we have a real problem with like service then we’ll actually like discuss it and find a solution.

Ponchos Tacos: But if it’s like. Like oh like I spilled some something at the stand? And like and then like I was just like pissed off and then we got into a fight like we’re not gonna like nothing’s gonna happen out of it. But like if it was like hey like we have a problem like keeping up with like this track of orders like having like a system for like Service or something? Yeah, well like obviously discuss something like that.

Andrew: Oh my God. Look at them I do it for the love of the game. You know I put my heart and soul into this man like.

Andrew: Holy crap if you want to be a night market vendor look at this You got a this is not easy work for people who think it’s easy, this is not easy. Look at this. This is a life they chose. They’re suffering from success and you get no breaks right?

Ponchos Tacos: Yeah no break.

Andrew: Oh my god.

Andrew: What keeps you wanting to Continue doing it. Let’s say, you know, you complete the day. You’re like, oh my god. This is so tiring. But what keeps you?

It’s just like seeing the money.

Yeah, obviously like always the money.

But like it’s also just like a personal challenge.

At least for me is like the like the best feeling dude Like like having like knowing all day like we have an event dude, and then we got the night market, dude.

Like yeah, it’s just like so it’s like a dope story always like yeah Like we just worked a 16-hour day like all these different things like we had to like battle.

Andrew: It’s a good feeling after Yeah, when you in the moment, it’s like this. This is like the worst thing but like when you look back on it, it’s like It’s like we was like that’s pretty cool that we were able to do that you guys enjoy it Yeah, and we were able to like sure they’ll be like stress, but like we completed it like we did it.

Andrew: You did it. Yeah challenge, but you guys did it even on the bad days. It’s fun. You know What other job you get paid to hang out with your buddies all day?

Andrew: Look at this. They literally non-stop Wrap up the video and And I guess we might just end the video here Where do you guys see Ponchos Tacos in the next five years?

We want to start off with getting a food trailer for next year. So we can because a lot of events you need a food trailer or food truck to get in and right now we only have Like the the tent set up. So with that we were able to get into like the PNE and like big big big events like that.

Hopefully the Stampede one day. That’s a big one.

Stampede is like number one on our list.

One goal that I Imagine this like an issue goal. That’d be like really exciting. We get into a sporting event. Oh, I like arena. We like I like go to like a bunch of like sports events like Rogers Arena BC place if we can get in there. That’s like I would do my favorite.

Yeah, dude Rogers Arena would be insane for us We know that your average business won’t get in there But it’s like the it’s like partnership or like shake a committee that like a committee that decides stuff But if we can get it, I’ll be like yeah.

Yeah like mall even like the mall like like like a food court Yeah, that’d be cool.

Andrew: This is it. This is how busy they are. This is the reality.

Samson: Honestly, I was respect them. If we just end it Yeah no no, we know we’re not gonna stop them.

Samson: Yeah Look at that. Yeah, they’re so busy, but I mean, I’m sorry to viewers. We had to we’re gonna ask a few more questions But this is it like you honestly if you’re wondering should I be at the night market just so we’re gonna deal with. All right, it’s either this or you’re not you don’t make any money and you lose money, right?

Samson: Or you don’t make any money like us You’re here trying to like interview with them.

Samson: We’re like literally like bobing and butting into their head.

Andrew: Filming our stupid YouTube video.

Samson: Get this asian guy out of our stand.

Andrew: I’m like in their way. Thanks for watching If you found the video entertaining or valuable drop a like. Comment down below any questions you have for them. And make sure to subscribe because we’re gonna have more interviews with amazing business owners just like them. Very soon, lots coming up so stay tuned and we’ll see you in the next one.

Andrew: This is why we do these business interviews get free stuff Yeah.

Samson: The only reason.

Andrew: You know we got fitted and then we got a facial spa.

Andrew: Now we get tacos.