Ep10 Tony & Allie Festa - From Hard Rock to Hard Tacos: Building a Community-Loved Restaurant Without Losing Your Sanity

Tony Festa  0:00  
What did you learned about being an entrepreneur versus being an employee? It's amazing if, if you view it properly. I for for you, you need to figure out what you want your life to be first and then try to fit what you do around that. That's the most important thing for me, is that I got to be at every one of my daughter's gymnastic beats every one of my sons you know, baseball games, football games.

Scott Groves  0:27  
Welcome to Henderson HQ, this is the podcast where you get all the stories behind the businesses that make our community tick. Don't forget to subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Hey, everyone. Scott groves, Henderson HQ, podcast and newsletter today we're talking to Ali and Tony, the owners of megusta tacos in the district in Green Valley, one of my favorite places to eat when I need some quick good shrimp burritos or fajita burritos, is the new thing that I have to try. We talked to Tony and Ali about growing up in the service business here in Las Vegas, how that skill set transferred over to being a business owner or a restaurant tour how their first franchise restaurant didn't work out so well, and how they just believe the better option these days is to buy an existing business and then build from there. Also talked a lot about having a great staff, how you find them, how you train them, how you invest in them. So whether you want to be a restaurateur or you just want to work in a customer service related business, or be a customer service owner of a business. This is gonna be a great podcast for you, and they're a lot of fun with a lot of cool stories. Hope you enjoy. Hey, ladies and gentlemen, it's Scott groves with the Henderson HQ podcast and newsletter. I'm here with my new friends, Ally and Tony, who are the owners of megusta Taco. And it's funny because we were doing a little Instagram giveaway. Whoever does their marketing. I don't know if that's you. Okay, it was great because we were doing a little giveaway for some money to build subscribership on the Instagram. And I happened to be eating at a restaurant right across the corridor, and I get this Instagram message like, hey, come by. We'd love to be on your Instagram, or we'd love to be on the newsletter, and we'll give you some free tacos. And I'm kind of like a glutton for food. So I will do anything for free tacos. So we got to know each other. And then I love the community event that you just held with the big car show. Like, I want to talk about that, how you guys are using community events to build patrons and people that come in for tacos. But I'm a sucker for tacos. I'm like, I've never talked to somebody that owns a taco stand, so thank you for being here. Megusa tacos and Henderson tell us the story of how you guys became the owner of megusta

Unknown Speaker  2:24  
Tacos. You go ahead town. Okay,

Tony Festa  2:28  
how long of a version Do you want? However long you want to give us, right? Okay, we had a restaurant before in Scottsdale, Arizona. It was called Tacon. Okay, sounds like a taco shop, right, right? It was not whoops, it was paninis, salads, wraps, great food. Let's just say we didn't do very well. Okay, we ended up back in Las Vegas. We have another business, and we hit the point that a lot of people do in our aged demographic, that your kids grow up a little bit, right? We had another business doing okay, and I was bored. That's usually how these things, yeah. So I was bored, and we talked about, hey, let's get a second income. So I started doing research on different businesses, and stumbled upon a restaurant even knowing what I knew from the time before. But it was in the district which we love. The district we know the previous owner, my wife, actually, Ali, my wife, she's right here. She worked with him back at the palms in, I mean, late 90s, early too. Okay, right? You're at trouble tonight, buddy. So they had worked together, so I called Chris, and his name is Chris Connors. We had a long conversation, and we explored a little bit more, and said, We love the district, we love the food, we love the concept, we just love the community. And decided, hey, let's, let's jump in.

Allie Festa  3:58  
Yeah, yeah, get a little redo

Scott Groves  4:00  
from Yeah, yeah. How long did you How long did you buy it?

Allie Festa  4:03  
Two and a half years May of 2023

Scott Groves  4:07  
you know, it's so funny. We just interviewed a great business broker in Henderson. Actually, he's one of the top of the nation here in Henderson, but does businesses all over, and we talk specifically about restaurants, right? Like, what a high failure rate they are. And I asked him. I said, you know, in my mind, if a business is for sale, it means it's failing. Because, frankly, if I had a business that was a cash cow or was spinning off residual income, why would you ever get rid of that? He's like, No, you don't understand. People want to retire. People, you know, buying, yeah, they want to cash out. People buy businesses for their kids, and their kids get bored. So when you took over the business, was it failing, no offense to the previous owner, or was

Allie Festa  4:46  
it? It wasn't, actually, so they opened up a bakery up in St George. It was, it was called farmstead. It's now called Bon ru and they wanted to open up more of them so they didn't have as much time, and they wanted more capital to open more. So they decided to sell, me gusta, nice.

Scott Groves  5:01  
You don't have to give me any specific numbers, but one of the things I was talking about with Trent is, like, multiples, right? Like, tech companies get these huge multiples. I'm guessing restaurants probably only sell for like, one or two times profit or income or something like that. Is that kind of right on top with what you guys pays?

Tony Festa  5:17  
Yeah. I mean, there's variables. You know, there's a lot of variables, the lease, the location, you know, just a lot the brand awareness. So you can have a higher multiple on a different restaurant, you know, say, versus independent, smaller place. So they're all a little different. But yes, that's the ballpark. So

Scott Groves  5:36  
I think when most people think of like tacos, they think probably of their favorite local taco spot, and then they think Del Taco, Taco Bell, stuff like that. What made you guys want to buy an independent place that was just yours versus a franchise? Like, have you guys had any experience with a franchise, or heard some horror stories, or what made you want to own your own place? Taco and

Allie Festa  5:55  
was a franchise. It was actually in the district where Rachel's kitchen is. That was Tacon previous to Rachel's kitchen. Okay, so yes, we have wonderful and you did

Scott Groves  6:03  
not want to get back in bed with a franchise. I'm guessing

Tony Festa  6:07  
there are, there are great things about franchises, walking in day one and having the systems in place to follow, having the concept 100% developed for you. And then there's some things that, if you're, you know, a little bit of a control freak and like to change things on the fly, yeah, franchises don't like that, right? You know, there's a whole process, and I don't know that's not for me, not for you. You know, we've changed a lot in the restaurant. I liked the bones of the restaurant, and it's been an interesting process, because when you have a business that is successful, you don't want to mess with it too much, right? That's the the smart business guy. That's not me. My wife agree, but I saw it as an opportunity to try to create something that I saw. And, you know, it's, it's hard. You're, you do business as well. You're in business, I apologize, and you put yourself out there, and you're like, hey man, like me, you know, right? That's really what you're saying. And I really enjoy that process, like, I really enjoy that nice

Scott Groves  7:25  
what are some changes that you've made that were wildly successful, and what are some that have, like, fallen flat on their face?

Tony Festa  7:33  
I mean, the album wall people love, yes, there's the decor, you know, number one sheet. So when you came in originally, and I'm sorry I'm very long winded. She already has a sign to tap me when I'm going too long. This

Scott Groves  7:45  
is, this is the thing we want to hear about, like this. This is the real stuff with local businesses that

Tony Festa  7:49  
they bought the place, and on the wall it was megusa Tacos make simple better. Sounds fantastic, right? Like every every restaurant has their own little catch line and what they're about, hopefully it's descriptive enough that when you read it, you know what the business is about. And I hate it. I don't know why I do. Look I do it's fair. My vision was a funky little taco joint that you remember. And we've been in the hospitality industry for a very long time, and we've been to, you know, we've all been to many places, and I wanted it to be something that you go in, right? You have a wonderful experience. The music's on point, the food's fantastic, you know, the staff there are amazing. Everybody does that, right? That's the goal,

Scott Groves  8:42  
yeah, and especially in Vegas, like, table stakes for a restaurant out here, yeah, it's like, bad restaurants don't make it because there's so much competition, but

Tony Festa  8:49  
that, but that's, that's what we should be striving but then it's to take it just a little bit further, right, like, create an environment that people are gonna remember that they want to go back because they had a, just a great experience. And, you know, that's, that's what we've strived for. So we changed the decor. It's, it's now no longer simple. It's, it's very it was

Allie Festa  9:10  
white walls. Yeah,

Scott Groves  9:12  
that's much more eclectic. Yeah, much more. So which one of you is the 90s grunge rock fan I would be? Yeah? Okay, so we must be about the same age, because when I sit in there, I sit there with my nine year old son, and I'm like, let me tell you about when I bought that album, and let me tell you about when I saw Pearl Jam in concert. And let me tell you about and I just went through all the albums, and he could care less, yeah. But for me, it's like, a certain level of nostalgia where I'm like, I love that. Yeah, I still have all my dad's old records that one day I'm going to frame all of those and put them up on a wall somewhere, because, like, he's got, you know, the first run of cream, and then the first run of, like, Creedence, Clearwater Revival from the 60s and 70s and like that really resonated with me. Yeah, I think people that don't care, they're just not going to care, but people that care, that's really memorable, right? Like, if I didn't remember the name of your place, I'd be like, Yeah, you know, the taco place with all the albums on the wall,

Tony Festa  9:58  
exactly, and it wasn't. That's not the it's not a marketing ploy, you know, honestly, it's, it's a place that I want to go into. I like to go in there, right? I mean, it's, you walk in and you're like, oh, man, I remember that, you know? And if you don't like music, cool, the other side is pretty funny. Yeah, you know, there's a dude riding a

Scott Groves  10:19  
chili there is a Chewbacca sitting on a toilet, exactly. And that's, of course, where my nine year old went. He's like, Dad, look at that. And I'm like, what? There's a lot of pictures on the wall. What are you looking at? He's like, Star Wars, Chewbacca on a toilet. I never thought of Chewbacca using the shitter. And I was like, first of all, don't say shitter, say toilet. And I was like, Oh, yeah. That's, that's pretty that's pretty witty. Like, I like that type of stuff. Yeah,

Allie Festa  10:41  
and sorry. He has definitely made it his place. Like everything in there really just screams him. He's got Eagle stuff Philadelphia sports stuff up all his favorite albums and things that he thinks are funny and he doesn't. He doesn't care what anyone else thinks. No likes it,

Tony Festa  10:58  
but I do care, but not in the sense of like, it's just Here I am, you know. And if you like it cool, let's hang out. Let's talk about music. Let's talk about sports. Let's laugh at what's on the wall. And if that's not your thing, cool, there's Phil bertos down the road, you know, there's still Taco Bell. Yeah, there's lots of places you can go. But we, I don't know if you'll ever get to that point, but we met at the Hard Rock Hotel. I started working there in 96 and worked there for about 10 years. And the vibe there, if you grew up here, you know, if anyone that lives here, you know that was here in that era, you'll remember it like. They'll right away to be like, Oh, I remember hanging out at the side bar, man, did you work at the center bar, you know? And, yeah, and for us, it was just such a memorable experience. And the things like you talk about 90s, grunge, we were exposed to so many artists and people that in kind of our formative years, you know, I was mid 20s, she was early 20s, and it just created such a visceral memory of, like, what it's like to go to a place. I mean, we loved working there. Yeah, I can't imagine what it was like to go there. You know, it's different when you're on the inside and you're having a blast. And she worked at rain nightclub as well. And, I mean, she has stories, and we both have stories, whatever. She worked at babies, but you just we still talk about them with people. We still run into people we worked with 25 years ago.

Scott Groves  12:37  
Well, two things, one, we're gonna have to end the podcast because you're an Eagles fan, because my my middle my middle name is Lambert. My family's from Pittsburgh, named after the world famous Jack Lambert, the best Lombards ever to ever play. Yeah, it's close enough. But that's funny. I did notice the eagle stuff. And then I will tell you I came because I grew up in LA and my uncle lived up here. So I was up in Vegas every couple months, sometimes once a month, and to this day, the cigar lounge at the Hard Rock Cafe was, like, my favorite place in Vegas, because we always look like bums. We looked homeless, basically because I would come up with a bunch of pro poker, yeah, totally. I still look like a bub. And we would go to the cigar lounge there, and we would be smoking all day after, like, a long poker session, and we would literally look homeless, but we tipped really well, and everybody else is, like, dressed to the Nye as and I'll tell you something after the podcast ends. That's a pretty funny story about the hard rock that's like, seared in my brain, but not appropriate for this podcast venue, but I'll tell you about that after we leave. But yeah, you are definitely creating the same type of vibe there. So what was most important for you to keep so that the existing clientele kept coming back?

Tony Festa  13:45  
Wow, that's a great question, because I would say the food quality. The food quality, yeah, yeah. I mean, that was when you're doing your due diligence, you out, you know, because we didn't start the concept, but when you're taking it over, you want to make sure that you keep the customers you currently have, you want to amplify what they were doing, right, and then, if you have creative ideas, do it on your own. So it was always in the review, staff and food staff and food and just, we had such a good time. So and so was fantastic. You know? The food was amazing. I never thought of a taco like that, so it was really just keeping those were the two core things, the food and the people.

Scott Groves  14:27  
Yeah, tell us a little about the staff, right? Because I've heard in Vegas, we're actually in the interview process right now for a new executive assistant, and I've heard that staff can be a double edged sword. Is like, there's a lot to pick from, but this is a pretty transitory community. Like keeping talent, there's always another job in the service industry. You know, I imagine, you know, you can't pay at a taco place what you would pay at a steakhouse. So how are you like, finding people, training people, retaining people. Because I do notice everybody that's in there. When I go in there, it's like a smile. It feels very like Chick fil A. Ish that people are happy. So I'm guessing you hire happy people. But how do you find staff, and how do you retain them in this crazy town where there's a million food service

Allie Festa  15:07  
jobs, we did have a little bit of trouble when we first took over, we used, indeed, we we got some, some rough ones, mainly, I would say most of our staff now is recommendations from people that we know almost all, or our staff, or our staff is like, Oh, I have a friend that I think I can't I mean, I can only think of one that works there, that we that's from indeed, I think, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, just through other people. It's better that way. It's

Scott Groves  15:37  
crazy, like with all the tech out there and AI that can scrub resumes and stuff it so much stuff still comes from, like, personal introductions. Yeah, that's crazy.

Tony Festa  15:46  
Oh yeah, there's no way that anyone would ever be hired without me personally approving them. Like, even as you know, the goal for us is to grow, you know, is to scale. We're not talking about anything larger than the Vegas valley, but you have to have great people, yeah, you know. And it's very important to me that the people we have are great, you know, we're all different, and that, right? Am i Great? Is different than someone else's great. But yeah, they have to have that, that, I'm telling you, the Rock and Roll kind of, the vibe, yeah. You know, the fans of Pearl Jam, Allison chains, like all the things, they could not like pro jam Allison chains, for sure,

Allie Festa  16:27  
but I don't like Allison chains. Yeah, yeah. We could crowd the

Tony Festa  16:31  
podcast, right? So it's funny, like, the she has about four or five bands of mine that she's like, hitting Sass forward.

Scott Groves  16:39  
You know, it's funny because I've had some people on the podcast, and I've talked to a lot of business owners, and I've coached a lot of business owners who sell a product or a widget or a service, like a professional service. I can't really even conceptualize what it takes to market a restaurant, right? It's like, we could put you in the newsletter. You can have a cool Instagram, that type of stuff, but like getting bodies in the door, I've read some stats on this thinking about coaching restaurant tours. Of like, you know, you get 90% of your people that live within two miles and the you know, then it's like these, these radius circles. How do you market for a taco stand?

Tony Festa  17:12  
We were hoping you knew. I mean shit, shit. You conceptualized it. What's, I don't know. What do you got? I don't know, to be honest, I might be one of the man what's the right adjective the dumbest business owners he's ever met? Like, I like personal, you know. And unfortunately for me, it means that we don't do a lot of the traditional stuff, a lot of the print, the events that I hopefully we're going to talk about at some point, that we put on is really what I viewed as our biggest marketing to date. We just want to be part of the community. We want people to from the moment they step in, they have a good time. Yeah, and that's how we try to market is, you know, yes, we need to be out there with ads, and, yes, we need to be doing podcasts and all this other stuff. But it's really about capturing the interaction each and every day, because it doesn't matter if I get you in the door and the food isn't that good, or the staff wasn't that good, or, you know, the vibe of the restaurant wasn't good. Are you coming back? Yeah, no, not. So that, to me, is the marketing, and it's the little things, man, we got, I love kids, and we're right in front of a splash pad. I mean, you've been there? Yeah, we used to take our great location, by the way, we used to take our kids to the splash pad when they were little. And I just remember, and this is a big thing for me, I shocked. You haven't tapped me on the leg, that leg that I'm talking too much. So you're fine. It's good, um, but we love that area. We love the kids that come in, and anybody that treats my kids good, like you've won me over. Yeah, you know, like, if you're treating kids good, it's, it's something different for me, especially mine. So my staff, and they know this, and they were 1,000,000% on board with it, because it's the type of people they are. We have stickers right by the register, and every kid that comes in, Hey man, you know, or kid, whatever, right? Hey, buddy, you want a sticker? No, it's, you know, hey, do you like stickers? And a lot of kids are bashful and they're shy and they're in a place that they don't know. But if you ask a kid normally, you know, like, Hey, do you like stickers? It's not, do you want one? It's not, what's your name? And they'll usually say yeah, and they want to look at them, you know. And it's just something to kind of break the ice. And we have kids, and when you take kids to a restaurant, it's a battle sometimes, man. But if you can say, hey, we're going to Me gusta, and you know they're going to take care of you. And you know that's just, I don't know that's my marketing. Sorry, by the way, really he lose

Scott Groves  19:52  
my kid is not bashful. I think he cleaned you out of all your stickers one time. The girl was like, Hey, kids, you like stickers? She's like, Well, I was already looking at these. How many can I take. Yeah, I don't know as many as you want. And I was like, Gabriel, take two and like, Get your hands off because he's got sticky

Tony Festa  20:05  
fingers. Oh, it's funny to how the parents get so embarrassed, like they're two cents each, man, let your kid take five. Let them enjoy it. Stick them on a water,

Allie Festa  20:13  
whatever makes them happy. Yeah, so Ali, tell

Scott Groves  20:15  
me about, like, some of the community events that you're doing, because when I showed up for the car show, I saw all your kids in pink shirts. And my my buddy who I was with, he's like, I wonder what the pink shirts I'm like? I can guarantee you that's me gusta tacos. Having just corresponded with them a little bit on Instagram, and knowing that they're hosting this event, that's like, that's their brand. That's what they're trying to put out. I guarantee you they hired all these frat boys to come talk about, talk about tacos, and get people in there buying, you know, talk. What did I have? I had the shrimp burrito. I was recommended shrimp burrito by one of the kids in pink. I was like, Hey, what's your favorite dish? He was like, Oh, dude, get the shrimp burrito. So can you tell us a little bit about how you're conceptualizing those community events, and then kind of how that all went off? Because it looked like a very big undertaking.

Allie Festa  20:56  
It was and, and I want to give Tony a lot of credit for that. It was his idea to do the car show. He loves classic cars. He has one. He approached the district and and asked if we could do it, and they gave us the Go ahead. And our big thing with that was we were raising money for the Las Vegas breast cancer warriors, and that's what the pink T shirts were. I love that you called them frat boys. That's so our son plays baseball at CSN, and that was the CSN baseball team. They were putting in community service hours to help us out with the event. And yes, I mean, it was very noticeable, having a bunch of athletes walking around in bright pink, yeah, Shannon hurts that they were all good looking, adorable boys. I mean, it was just something that we really wanted to put on, like a block party for the community, a free event. We were giving away free chips and salsa, just something fun to bring people out. And I just feel like there's, you know, not a lot of that in our area sometimes, and things cost money more so, and you could just come out and enjoy yourself and have a good time. How long did the

Scott Groves  21:57  
logistics take on that? Because I know even if you're in that classic car world, like getting the people to show up and getting them to showcase their cars. And then there was a bunch of booth there's and there was a couple other food trucks there, the flamingo, something, snow cone gal loved her, and her husband got a video with it.

Allie Festa  22:12  
Oh, they were amazing. So we met them in the Smart and Final parking lot. Oh, okay, there we go. Yeah, they had their Well, not that it was just Aaron. It was just Aaron. I think he was getting ice. Maybe he was, yeah, and we saw his truck, and Tony was like, stop the car. And he jumped out of the car and was like, Hey, would you like to be part of our event? It took him, I would say, months. Is it okay for me to say that it was not easy for you at first, to get the cars? Is that all right? Yeah.

Tony Festa  22:40  
I mean, about 10 days before we had four people registered,

Allie Festa  22:44  
he was so worried we had, we had 43 spots that we wanted to fill. And I remember Monday, it was Monday, you only had 15 registered, and he was really stressed out. And he was going to multiple car shows for a couple months ahead of time, he was going to cars and coffee every Saturday, and a lot of people just weren't receptive, which is strange. We weren't charging to be in it. We just wanted to make it a great event. And then it all came together that week, he was having to turn people away. It was really strange, like, what

Tony Festa  23:16  
happened? Yeah, we ended up with like, 50 cars. We

Scott Groves  23:19  
already prepped it off 43 it was a 57 Bel Air. There was like a 72 Bronco that that car was my favorite, because I love classic Broncos. There was like a 54 Apache Ford truck, like my kids love cars. My stepdad has like a 1940s classic truck. So they've been to a lot of car shows, and we went to the one on Water Street. So they it was, it was perfect for them, right? We went to a movie. We did the car show, came over to you guys to have some tacos, and it was, it was a great event. And what's cool is, like when you guys did that, I think it even creates a lot of goodwill amongst the other businesses, because they must have got a ton of foot traffic for a random Saturday afternoon,

Allie Festa  23:59  
right? The other businesses were great too. They all donated to our raffle, and they were really excited and so nice about it. So I just want to make sure and say that that's awesome. Do

Scott Groves  24:07  
you mind if I ask how much money you

Tony Festa  24:09  
raised for the breast cancer we are still tabulating it. Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, it's going to be over 5000 for sure. We'll probably be somewhere between five and 10,000 that's great. We're really excited in this look, this event became so much bigger than we ever imagined. And I'm just super proud of everybody that was involved, our staff, the vendors, the guys that showed up with their car, the band. Avenue B, yeah, they they play out of Jack's place in Boulder City. So if you ever want to see them. Look them up online, Avenue B, they're amazing, great guys, yeah, and it's just everything, like she said, it really came together. And it was just, it was a great event.

Scott Groves  24:49  
That's super cool. Most importantly, what classic car do you

Tony Festa  24:53  
have? I have a 1966 Pontiac lebons convertible. Nice. Yeah. Is it like a low rider style? No, no. I mean, it sits low, but it doesn't have any kind of bags or anything like that to lower it down.

Scott Groves  25:05  
Soon as you open migos with tacos number two, three and four, maybe you'll get a bouncing low rider.

Tony Festa  25:10  
My Oh, there was one there. I think it was a 64 Impala.

Scott Groves  25:14  
That was a gorgeous car. Embarrassingly, my nine year old is, like, addicted to, like, rap videos now, which bad parenting on my part? And every time we go, the more down we see, like a bouncing car. And I'm like,

Tony Festa  25:26  
Oh, wait, what? Right? I mean, is he listening to, like, do live? Is it three live? I mean, what do we look it's in here, really bad. You know, he ice Hill Smith. I mean, no, I

Scott Groves  25:34  
had to send him to his room the other day, and he has an Alexa in his room. So my wife's like, hey, go in Gabriel's room. And I'm like, why he's got sent to his room? He's like, go in Gabriel's room, and he's in the middle of his room listening to 50 cents mini men, like, swaying back and forth, like he's in prison. And I'm like, Hey, buddy, did I send you in here to, like, do some time? And he's like, I'm just mom always gets mad at me, you know, I see if they were both in there, pretty much. He's like, he's freaking out. So I beat her on. Yeah, 100% he was just like. I was like, this is not prison. We just sent you to your room for an hour. But he's a very good kid. I should have talked so badly about him. He's gonna watch this one day. But yeah, so he really likes the bouncing cars, as he's called them. So you mentioned, like, growth, like, where? Well, first of all, let's back up one step. You guys own a whole nother business, which you're welcome to talk about, of course, but when I think of, like, it was Rory board, okay, it's when I think of, like, starting a second business. I'm thinking like, Oh, something that's gonna run itself, something that's like, mailbox money, maybe something that plugs into my existing business. And you decided to pick a business where you guys kind of have to be there all the time, and like, growing the personalities and growing the patronage. Like, why'd you pick a second job that, like, probably takes as much, if not more, time than your first

Allie Festa  26:45  
job? Yes, Tony, please tell us,

Tony Festa  26:46  
I told you I might be the dumbest business man you've ever met. I literally used to tell people like, three, four, well, so two and a half years, four or five years ago, and we would tell them, hey, we owned a restaurant before. And they'd say, Oh, what was that like? And I say, Okay, let's do this. Give me all your money. Let me kick you in the nuts. And that's a better experience than owning a restaurant, yeah, and it's alert, doesn't it, right? No, I'm stuck. But he

Allie Festa  27:15  
came to me, and he was like, Can you call Chris and see if this is his, that's up for sale? I was like, What are you? No, we're not doing that.

Tony Festa  27:22  
So there's, there's a big difference, you know, you obviously learned from the first time. And I would probably, me personally, would never build a restaurant again, right? It was a, you know, from the ground up, literally, bare bones, shell whole TI, you know, everything. And by the time we got to opening. I just I wasn't ready. Yeah, honestly, I was, I mean, I was 3031, years old. Yeah, I wasn't ready. I thought I was, but I wasn't. And this time around, the due diligence was different. You know, we wanted an existing business. We wanted something in the community. You

Scott Groves  27:59  
didn't have a quarter million dollars of like, kitchen build out and crazy shit like that,

Tony Festa  28:03  
no, no, right? But, I mean, look, the cost of buying a restaurant is less than doing all of that stuff, but it's not that much less, right, you know. So it's still a significant investment. But you also already have brand awareness. You already have current customers, you know. So you've already got something going versus we were a brand new franchise in a new market, which the name Tacon did not represent what it was. Everybody thought we were tacos ironically. So you're hitting a brand new market in a franchise no one's ever heard of, right? You know. And I, that's the part that I wasn't ready for, you know, look, if we would open a canes, you know, in Scottsdale, we we wouldn't be talking, because I'd be retired already, right? You know, it's just making sure the second time around that what we were doing made sense. Yeah.

Scott Groves  28:56  
I mean, this seems to be, like, a big thing. I see on YouTube with, like, financial influencers. And they're like, dude, building a business from scratch is for the birds, like some type of, you know, initial cash flow in a business that's already there, and then you can put your twist on it, and you can build it, and then you can build a second one and a third one, but like, get the model down first with somebody that's already kind of done the growing pains. And even Trent Lee, who was on that business broker. He's like, Oh, yeah, you never want to open a subway. You want to be like, the second or third owner of a subway where they've already eaten the tenant improvement costs, they've already built everything out, you know, that stuff selling, you know, used restaurant equipment is much cheaper than buying it new. And so, yeah, it's interesting. You're like, the third person in here within a couple of weeks that's like, yeah, just find a business that's got good bones and then put your own spin on it and just grow that. Yeah. So what's, what's next you mentioned? Oh, we don't want to go outside of the valley, but it sounds like maybe there's an idea for location number two or three. Yeah,

Tony Festa  29:53  
there's, there's definitely areas that we've thought about in the valley, in. If our son has expressed interest at some point in coming aboard, you know, when he's done with whatever you know he's gonna do. And if you know Sky's sky's the limit, if that happens, right? Personally, I don't think more than a couple, but

Allie Festa  30:16  
let's say, Allie, I agree. One is a lot.

Tony Festa  30:21  
Yeah, you know, it really becomes about us having the ability to build the team, right? And if we can build the team and the system to do it, and we can create that atmosphere 100 times, let's do it. I'm all for it. So that's really on us. Yeah, you know, it's this initial one to see. Okay, does this work? Do people want this, you know? And I hope they do, because that's, that's, you know, when we go to San Diego, there's certain spots we're going to go to because we like that. We don't want to go to Rubio's, right, you know, or Baja Fresh, or whatnot. Those are all great restaurants, too. I'm not knocking anyone, right, but I like going up and looking on the menu board, and wow, man, who thought about putting that in there? Yeah? Like, who the hell names a ball? Bruce Leroy, yes. Like, what's, what's wrong with this guy? You know? And, but there's thought in it, you know, we actually, we do give a crap, yeah, you know, this was like, Hey, man, this is fantastic. I want to share this with other people. Like, try this, man. This is really good, you know. And, hey, by the way, it's from a movie from the 80s that most people don't know. And, right, it's outstanding ally.

Scott Groves  31:26  
You worked in entertainment, food services here in Vegas. You know, I think a lot of people that hopefully are watching maybe want to start their own business, and they're like, Oh, well, I have core experience in this world, and now I'm just going to own a business in that world. Over the last 1015, years, what's been most interesting to you as an entrepreneur versus like an employee, because it is a totally different world. So what have you learned about being like the owner and signing the front of the check instead of just signing the back? Oh, I don't let it touch the

Tony Festa  31:53  
check it out with that.

Allie Festa  31:55  
Um, this is actually a tough question for me, because I am definitely not a boss type personality that that really does fall on him. I could never be the one to fire people, or I have trouble even telling people what to do. So honestly, that that's more of a question for you.

Scott Groves  32:13  
What did you learned about being an entrepreneur versus being an employee?

Tony Festa  32:19  
It's amazing if, if you view it properly, I for for you, you need to figure out what you want your life to be first and then try to fit what you do around that, you know. And that's only recently that, you know, I've really realized how amazing the other business we had and the lives that we've had, you know, she got to stay at home with our children. And that's why I say, know what you want. Because when we got married, we said, if it's all at all financially pop, you know, possible, you know, because for a lot of people, it's not right, but if it's financially possible, and we want to have kids that have a mom at home, it's just so important, yeah, and to us, to us, to us, for sure, and a lot of people can't afford then, right? Totally. We were very fortunate that we were able to so to me, that is business, that's the most important thing for me, is that I got to be at every one of my daughter's gymnastic meets, every one of my son's, you know, baseball games, football games, everyone in my daughter's music recitals, like, no matter what it was, it wasn't, Oh, I got to put in for time off. And I, you know, we used to work in the casino, and you have stuff you want to do, and you have to submit, you know, your PT, or, what was it, time off, request, whatever. Yeah, for your PTO. And sometimes it would be the fourth of July or it would be New Year's Eve, and you can't, right? You know, somebody's getting married. Well, sorry, CES is in town, and we need you, right? You know. So that's what business has given to us, and we're very, very fortunate.

Scott Groves  33:55  
Yeah, I talked to a lot of entrepreneurs, and I'm like, hey, the good news about owning the business is you can do whatever you want. The bad news is you can do whatever you can do whatever you want. He's like, nobody's telling you to get to work as you grow the business, unless you are motivated to do it yourself. You know, it's funny. I had a similar story when my wife had our son. She worked in nonprofits, and nonprofits probably pay worse than owning a restaurant, and she went back to work for a couple of weeks, and then I'll never forget, she called me one day and she's like, Hey, how much money do you make? And I'm like, well, it's probably something you should know as my wife, right? But she just could care less about the finances. And I'm like, we do fine. And she's like, fine enough for me to not go back to work because this being away from my kid thing, I'm not really feeling this, and I don't make a lot of money here. And I'm like, you give them your two weeks so that you feel good about yourself. But yeah, we were also very fortunate that we're in a season of life and business in the mortgage industry where she could afford to stay home. And, you know, it's, it's really sad, because I know every time somebody talks about this, they're like, disqualified or a qualifier of like, hey, we get not everybody can do it and whatnot, which is true, and I totally understand that. But you know, there were certain cuts that we had to make, and certain priorities where it's like, Sure, my. Wife still has a little bit of her head, like, oh, well, the only way to, you know, contribute to the family is monetarily. And I'm like, No, it's not like our kids aren't going to be serial killers. What's the value of that? Like, if we had to wait a couple years to buy a new car, or we can't get a new cell phone every year? Like, who cares? Like, I'd rather have you at home. So, like, there's a sacrifice there. And I think some people can't make that sacrifice, and some people just aren't willing to do it. So I, you know, if you can figure it out, I guess like a great blessing to have mom home it with the kids, or dad home with the kids. I

Tony Festa  35:29  
loved it. I feel so grateful that I was able to and on that note, like she didn't just take care of the house. I mean, that's the other great part. You know about being an entrepreneur is, like, if you need help, yeah, you know, it ain't like, when I was working a job, you can't be like, Hey, honey, I'm really busy today. You want to come down with me and help me do whatever? No, you can't do that. But if you know the business is picking up and like, you're like, I can't handle all of this on my own. I need some help. Or I, you know, I'm Look, we all have times where we need to take a little break, you know. And she provides that for me, you know, any support that I need, she's there. Like, it's not even a question, you know. And hopefully I reciprocate, you know, both ways. It doesn't all the traditional whatever, like, we just do well together. And, you know, entrepreneurship for a husband and wife team that love one another and love being around one another. It's amazing. It's amazing

Scott Groves  36:24  
I can think of in the mortgage industry, lot of regulation, lot of federal this, a lot of continuing education, I'm like, but that probably has nothing on the regulation surrounding food and restaurants. So give us like, the best and worst of owning a restaurant in Henderson, as far as, like, regulation, dealing with the city, stuff like that. What's been easier than you expect, and what's been like, oh, this was kind of a pain in the ass to get this checklist signed off or whatever. Yeah.

Tony Festa  36:50  
I mean, the build out that we did in Scottsdale was different because we had to have checklists, but buying one, I mean, honestly, if, if you're doing the right thing, you usually don't have a lot to worry about. Awesome, you know, if, if you're worried about the health district coming in and checking your restaurant probably don't want to eat there, you know, like, hey, probably shouldn't be open. I'm in. Here's our here's our labels, here's how we wash. We don't

Allie Festa  37:15  
worry about it was, Come anytime, yeah, we're it's not even a concern,

Tony Festa  37:21  
yeah, you shouldn't be worried about being checked up on, because, all right, here's the rules. All right, I'll play by those that's that's okay, yeah, you know, and we can still put on a great product. Yeah? I mean, no, we've had no the City of Henderson is phenomenal to work with,

Scott Groves  37:36  
by the way. Do? I have heard this over and over again, yeah? That like, the city is very pro business. You know, I came from Los Angeles, which is maybe the number one anti business place in America. So I've heard all these horror stories. Like, you know, the fire inspectors talking to the food inspector, they have different regulations. I don't know what to do. You know, they're having to rip things out and rebuild things out and rebuild them. So, like, that was my frame of reference for, like, building a service business. And I've talked to dozens of people that are like, dude, Henderson is one of the easiest places I've ever been to open a business and like, be in compliance.

Tony Festa  38:08  
Yeah. I mean, you can call the business office and they'll help you, and they'll point in, actually, the area that you get your license and all of your permits. It's all one area, and you literally go from one window to the next. And if you have a question, oh, you'll need this. You'll need that. Okay, yeah. I mean, just follow instructions. It's, they make it very, very easy for you. And they're, they're great.

Scott Groves  38:29  
That's awesome. How beneficial has it been being at the district and getting the foot traffic versus, you know, being in a strip mall somewhere where you kind of have to make the restaurant a destination, like, do you get a lot of first time customers that just happen to walk by and want to Taco we

Allie Festa  38:44  
definitely do. Yes, we love being in there. We love the district and with obviously, we love when they hold events that's lots of foot traffic for us. And just we hear all the time like, Oh, we didn't even know that there was a taco shop in here. So it's great exposure for us just to be there. How do

Tony Festa  39:00  
you get repeat people like, you get emails or give out, give me your address. Hey, I haven't seen you in like three days. I got to pay for my kids. You know, college,

Allie Festa  39:15  
we do have coupons. We have a loyalty program. We have email marketing campaigns. Yeah, anything else to go? Hope, though, they just love the food and they

Tony Festa  39:25  
would, yeah, you know, it's, it's really cool when you get someone that comes in is like, I come to Vegas once a year, and this is one of the spots I got to go to. Or you have a local that will come in, and they'll be like, you know, my mom and dad are in from wherever. You know, I wanted to bring them here so they could try this. And you're just like, what? Like, thank you. Like, that's amazing.

Scott Groves  39:49  
It's a good sign when my wife will drive past nine taco shops on the way to your place, yeah? Because I'm like, well, we just passed nine taco shops. She's like, Yeah, but I want that shrimp burrito. And I'm like, All right, fair. So. So that's

Tony Festa  40:01  
very he likes the shrimp burrito rather than shrimp fajita burrito. Need a burrito so good. It's so good that one

Scott Groves  40:11  
What are I want to talk to you a little bit about the staff ally. Like, what are you doing to keep, like, the energy up hire good people. Like, I mean, I know that's part of your secret sauce. That was one of the first things you said, is, like, you said is, like, staff and food, that's what we have to keep well. So like, how are you training people? Or do they train themselves if they have the right attitude? Or what do you guys do

Allie Festa  40:30  
for that? I honestly think that we tend to hire people that that we can see be we just, we want friendly, like, the when we interview, the first thing we say is, like, it is really important to us the customer experience. So we want them walking in, and we want big smiles and welcome say hi to everybody,

Tony Festa  40:48  
but not in a canned, you know, the type of person that enjoys walking someone in the door, yeah, you know. And it's, it's a different person. Look my, my demeanor is different, you know. But when someone is coming into your establishment and look not for nothing, that person is telling you with their wallet, you know, like, Hey, I like you. I want to come to your business. And, yeah, you know, if our employees know, like that person is paying your bills, like, at the end of the day, treat them good, they're going to keep coming back. You know, that's what we want. You know, as a business, you should want customers that are happy, and you know, if you can get that to your employees and let them, you know, buy in and understand that, you know. And we just talked to our employees, and it's really important. It's part of the interview process. Our restaurant. What do you like about other places? What do you like about the staff? What do you like about the menu? You know, the whole experience, okay, if you have a good meal, that's a fantastic experience. When you walk away thinking that was worth it. I had a really good time. I want to go back, right? That's a great night. We all work very, very hard everyone, right? And if you're going to spend your hard earned money and go to a restaurant, you should get that experience. You should feel like, wow, man, they took care of me. Like their food's good. They are attentive to me. They ask me questions if I need it, they take away my food, they talk to me. I mean, look, we're all the digital age and all of this, but there's something about that personal interaction, you know, that somebody recommends, Oh, you don't like spicy. We'll try this. Or you do like spicy. Take the El Diablo or the chupacabra bowl, you know, like that is the stuff that gets me going. I don't know was that even the question, no, it's good, I don't know. Oh, sorry, question, it was good. Yeah, you nailed it, all right. So I remember I taught a lot. I don't let her talk. No, it's fine. Beat her a lot, so like, she's on very good behavior. And we definitely go,

Scott Groves  42:54  
alright, yeah, right. He is down.

Tony Festa  42:57  
It's ironic that, it's

Allie Festa  42:59  
ironic that you're along with

Scott Groves  43:01  
Yeah, there you go. You'll be fine. We'll get you out of here a few minutes. But you I remember reading this or seeing this talk by Darren Hardy, who wrote the book The compound effect and the entrepreneur roller coaster. I went to one of his events, and he used to be the editor of entrepreneur, entrepreneur magazine. Then he bought it, and he was telling this story where he's at this hotel and, like, the service is amazing, and blah blah. And he was just so blown away. He like, called for the manager and called for the owner, and he's like, Hey, man, I really need to know your secret sauce about training, and are you following the Disney method? And like, the manager was just like, What are you talking about? He's like, Well, how are you training these people? You know, this person helped me this way, and this person was so friendly, and this just went on and on and on. He's getting frustrated. He's like, I need to know your methodology, because I want to write about it in Entrepreneur Magazine. And the guy's like, I don't know. I guess we just hire friendly people, and then they act friendly, like, this is not, this is not rocket science. Hires the right people, yeah, right. And everybody tried to formalize this, and let's, let's have a playbook for friendliness. It's like, I'm not a friendly guy. You can't turn me into a friendly person. Yeah, I'll be outgoing. I'll talk about whatever you want to talk about, but I'm not inherently friendly, yeah? And so, like, obviously you guys are just hiring friendly people,

Tony Festa  44:09  
yeah? Look, if anyone that's ever had employees, you know, sometimes you misread, yeah, you know, sometimes it seems like they're gonna want to talk to everybody. And for some people, they don't like to do that. Yeah, you know, but you have to. In the hospitality industry, you have to. I'm

Scott Groves  44:25  
gonna take a wild guess that I already know the answer this question. But which one of you deals with, like, customer complaints or bad Yelp reviews or, like, somebody does get a wild hair up their butt because they thought the barbaco was going to be different than the carne asada or whatever? Who deals with

Tony Festa  44:38  
that? I'm not supposed to. I'm just you should tell him about the one. No, no, don't

Scott Groves  44:45  
tell people about that stuff. Hey, so Ali, when you deal with disgruntled clients, because you have the better smile and you're more personable, how do you deal with that? When a client is

Allie Festa  44:53  
upset? I mean, they're they're always right. That's really Yeah, no, yes, yes.

Scott Groves  45:00  
This is why Ali takes the Yeah, but I want to hear Ali's tell me about the clients are Joe, it's go

Speaker 1  45:06  
for it. All right. This is the greatest interview ever. All right, tell me about the client

Scott Groves  45:11  
always being right, and then I'll find out when you need to stab his Jay. Know your role.

Allie Festa  45:15  
That is how I feel. He might not always feel the same way. But do you want to go on and look at reviews for a restaurant and see the owner being angry at a bad review. You

Tony Festa  45:24  
don't Okay, don't

Scott Groves  45:26  
Okay, right? That's her over time. Okay, go for

Allie Festa  45:29  
it. And that's bad it for for the restaurant. So I personally whatever we can do to make it right, whatever we can do within reason, right? Shaking his head. I know he doesn't agree with me. That's how I feel. I feel like I want to make it right. I want to make it better. Let's get them back in. Most of the time

Tony Festa  45:48  
you said the customers always you can't go to most after you said, always with a caveat, no, that's still, there's no asterisk. This isn't Barry Bonds.

Allie Festa  45:57  
You can't sometimes people are dishonest, and you can tell and, you know, let's try to get free stuff. Yes, and that can really bother Tony. I generally just, you know, we'll

Tony Festa  46:07  
just, so let's bother anyone right about that. Like, oh

Allie Festa  46:11  
so sorry. You feel that way when you know someone's being dishonest. But if there is a problem,

Tony Festa  46:15  
I have to always that you're gonna be like, yeah, so Okay, let's let number one, we had an Uber driver come and take like, $120 order and said they never picked it up. Yeah. Okay, so that's no okay. They're not really a customer, I guess. But number two customers, number two, here's the other one that I'll give you. A guy came in. We had an employee working for us that what used to be our next door neighbor, okay, like my daughter. Oh, he's 19 years old, working in the store one day, and I come in and this cheese ball is leaning on the counter like schmoozing her up. And he's got to be like, 2627 and she's just out of high school. She might have been 18. I think she was, yeah, she's just out of high school. So I just walked up, I said, Hey, how you doing? Very friendly. Hey. How you doing, fine. Okay. Do you need something? No, this is a grown man. This isn't like, you know, a kid, whatever. So I said, All right, we need to counter right here then. And there's nobody in the store, like, literally not a soul. And he's like, so then I got little irritated. This is why I can't be in the store all the time, right? I was getting very protected, but I can't play it out of energy, yeah, so I actually went over he was at a bar next door because I didn't want to eat it Mangusta anymore, and called him out. And yeah, he was gonna post it online and call Yeah. Go ahead, tell everybody how big of a jerk off you are, because I will reply to it, yeah. So, you know, that's obviously, that's just a little serious. One off, yes, talking about issues, most of the people are amazing. Most of the time, yeah, not always on dealing with the public. They are amazing, 99.9 Yeah, yeah. And if someone comes in and their food isn't right, we we put the wrong thing on. We cooked it too much. Whatever it is, yes, please. Yeah, you know, let me get you a churro as well. Like, I'm sorry, because I know what it's like to go out and have your food not come back the way you wanted it. And you're like, I just spent, you know, $13 on a burrito, and this is what I got. Yeah, you know, which? Some people, that's nothing. They don't care. Other people, it's like, Hey, I should get something good. And that's how I feel, and that's how we've always felt,

Scott Groves  48:24  
yes, so I'll tell you just a funny story. When we were at the we're at the restaurant, when you had the car show, and it was like, Bedlam in there, right? It was like, everybody's coming in for drinks and there. And so there was a lot going on. And the gal who checked us out gave us whatever number seven or whatnot, and one of your staff, like, runs out with the order number seven, and he looks at our table, and in 99 out of 100 scenarios, that guy drops off the food, and then we open the food, and it's not the right food, and we gotta send it back. And I feel kind of weird that I touch somebody else's food. He goes to sit down on the table, and he breathe, he he took a breath, and he's like, Wait a minute. There's no way this amount of food is serving this many people. I don't think I have your order, right? What did you guys order? And we're like, Oh, we got two burritos and eight tacos and two beers or whatever. He's like, Yeah, that clearly does not fit in this bag. We made a mistake. Let me run this to the back and we'll figure it out. So he runs it to the back and he comes back. He's like, I'm really sorry. In the rush, we gave two people number seven. And so he's like, just running around the courtyard trying to find whoever's burritos. Had to be Zeus or Jace. Oh, I think he had glasses, shorter hair, younger boy, super nice guy. And I was, I was just impressed, because, you know, in the heat of the moment, 99 times out of 100 they just dropped the bag, and then you got this whole weirdness going on. And, like, I don't want to be a jerk, and they made an honest mistake. But he just, like, he took the second to think it through and be like, oh, there's eight people at this table. Clearly, they didn't get two tacos, like, or two Burris or whatever, yeah. And it's like that, just that kind of shows that, like your staff is on the ball.

Tony Festa  49:50  
Well, not just that when they start, you know? And hopefully they all remember this and understand this is, we tell them you're going to make mistakes. Yeah, it's okay. You are going. Going to make mistakes, right? It's, it's not whether you are not, it's what you do, though, right? And to not make the same mistake again. So when you put the order down doesn't make sense, and if it doesn't, it's okay, just and the other thing I always tell people, slow down, like when, when it's going 100 miles per hour, slow down.

Scott Groves  50:19  
Well, this guy took that to heart. So whatever, whatever you're doing to reinforce that in them, would

Tony Festa  50:24  
you rather wait and get the right food or get your your food and it's wrong and you got it real quick now you got to wait again? Yeah? No, no, holy Yeah. Our staff is amazing, by the way. So amazing. Couple local

Scott Groves  50:34  
questions, since you guys have been at Henderson for a long time, other than Me gusta tacos, of course, what's some of your favorite restaurants in in the area that people got to try out.

Allie Festa  50:42  
And my favorite is pizza rock. So where is that? It's in Green Valley Ranch Casino. I I love their pizza. Where else do we like to go piece of rock? Right in Henderson. In Henderson, yeah, we don't eat out a ton. We don't,

Tony Festa  50:59  
I mean, there's, I don't know, no Parsley is not in Henderson, I don't

Allie Festa  51:02  
think there's really, I think it is. Is there? It's on some sets. I think that's Henderson.

Tony Festa  51:07  
What? What business do you wish was in the district? Like, what's that? Get apple in there? Oh, an

Scott Groves  51:13  
Apple Store. That'd be amazing. The foot traffic for that. I'm so sick of driving over to the town center. Yeah, I had to drive over there just the other day my wife, yeah, okay, I guess we're making a date out of it and going

Tony Festa  51:23  
to Barnesville anthem in spirada, Green Valley, like we need an Apple store. Yeah, it

Scott Groves  51:29  
was quick. This is why I like interviewing business owners. You have quick answers. Worst part, best part about living in Henderson,

Allie Festa  51:38  
well, we've both been here forever. He moved here when he was three, and he's 51 and I moved here when I was nine, and I'm 45 so it's really all we've ever known. We also have always lived in Henderson, and, oh,

Tony Festa  51:52  
I lived on the west side. So wait for 40 years. You guys have seen a massive amount. You know, we should be so much richer.

Scott Groves  51:59  
We're morons. Me too. I start hoping up there in the 90s. And if I would have just bought, you know, a couple places at Green Valley, a couple places in in anthem, I would be retired. But, you know,

Tony Festa  52:08  
yeah, no, I lived here when sunset road was the end of the world, like there was nothing, you know, and to see what it is today, it's amazing. We love Anderson. We

Allie Festa  52:18  
really do love person. I can't think of anything bad. It's about it. You

Tony Festa  52:22  
have the convenience of a major city, right? But you're not in a major city like there. And to me, green but there's two. If you've lived here a long time, most people live in Summerlin or Green Valley. It's just, you know, and for us, growing up on this side of town, I just love being by the airport, you know, you can get to the strip quick. It's just, I love it. Southerland's amazing too, though, yes, yeah, a lot of great spots. What did I forget to ask you about being a business owner of a restaurant, because I feel like there's behind the scenes stuff that I don't even know how to ask because I've never worked in food services. I scooped ice cream when I was 16 at thrifties, which might be the greatest job I've ever had. Because you want to talk about happiness, people are always happy when I say we had ice

Allie Festa  53:01  
cream for sure. Yeah. So you would think the same with tacos. But that's not always

Scott Groves  53:05  
true. Yeah, that's true. What's something about owning an industry that people don't know some insider baseball,

Tony Festa  53:11  
you know, people, we don't eat the food as much as we thought.

Allie Festa  53:14  
Oh, yeah. When, when the previous owner was training us, I would be like, Why aren't you getting something to eat? And he was like, no, no, I can't. And we thought we would want to

Tony Festa  53:23  
eat it forever, yeah, but at that, you know, and that is where some of the creations on the menu have come from. Not just bored. It's like, okay, I've had the Cali. It's amazing. I love it every time. But you know, if you're coming once a week, once a week sounds fantastic, right? But Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, you know you're there at 930 in the morning till eight o'clock at night, you know. So, and our menu is pretty diverse, you know, so you can have something different each day. So I would say that, yeah, that's been interesting that we thought, you know, especially because it's free for you, right? It's your restaurant, yeah? But, yeah, yeah.

Scott Groves  53:56  
Best part about owning a restaurant, we'll end on that

Tony Festa  54:01  
our kids eat for free

Allie Festa  54:03  
when you 20 year old baseball player, so much food, so much food. So now Evan just, please just go, because

Scott Groves  54:10  
he walked into the staffs. Like, dude. Evan was here four times today. Are you sure? Are you sure he's really for free?

Tony Festa  54:15  
Yeah, yes. They see him coming in. That's cool. But the people, yeah, the staff, the people that come in. I mean, there's, there is something about when you know a staff person and they leave and you can tell like they don't want to, right? You know, look, we tell our employees, we hope you do great things. It doesn't have to be here if you grow with us and we do great things together, amazing. But you're probably going to go on and do something right, yeah? And when they go and you want to see them succeed, like I love that. When you meet people in the restaurant that I've been coming here since it opened, and, you know, I just love this place, or they try something new, it's just that connection. You

Scott Groves  54:57  
know, how fulfilling will it be for you? And there's some kid that's now older and running some major Restaurant Group in Vegas, and he's like, I got my start at Megu sa taco,

Tony Festa  55:07  
yeah, it'll be like, I learned what not to do, right? He's like, I went and learned it. So no, it would be amazing any of them, if they do anything. We have one kid that he's going for broadcast journalism, Nathan. We have another kid went to the Air Force. We had one moved to Kansas to go to nursing school. It's all of them we do. I mean, it's just, it's they leave, and we have kids come home from college and work for us, and you see them for two months, and they're amazing people. And, you know, so that to me, the people, yeah,

Scott Groves  55:39  
I can see the pride in your team, the way that I would see, like somebody have pride in their kids. So that's really cool to see, considering you've only been there for a couple of years. Yeah. So cool. Everybody head over the district. Check out migusa Tacos, and if Allie and Tony are in there talking about music, because the wall of music, I'm a big fan.

Allie Festa  55:56  
Awesome. Thanks for going on. Thank you for joining us.

Speaker 2  56:01  
Hey, it's Scott groves with the Henderson HQ podcast. I hope you got something out of that episode. If you enjoyed it, please don't forget to like, comment and subscribe to the podcast. It really helps the show grow. And by the way, if you are a business owner, or you know, a business owner who has an interesting product, service or just an interesting backstory. Please. Please get in touch with us. Email us at the Henderson hq@gmail.com we would love to interview you, because that's what this show is all about. It's about building community, supporting local, individually owned businesses, and just making Henderson a great place to live. And don't forget, go to Henderson hq.com and make sure you sign up for our newsletter. We send out a once a week newsletter, no spam, about the most interesting local businesses, hot spots, restaurants, community events. Thanks for watching the show. Really appreciate you. You.