The Way Up, Episode 6 - Nixta Taqueria

There was someone who shut up three hours early to sit in a chair. He's like, "I want to be the first one to eat here." And we were like, "Wow, okay." And then, you know, didn't stop, I remember being in the kitchen right before we were about to open. I hadn't looked out and over an hour. And I peeped out and the line was a rat around the corner. And I was like, "Whoa, okay. I don't know if we're ready for this, but let's see what happens." I'm Guy Ross, and welcome to The Way Up, presented by Square. A new series where I sit down with entrepreneurs immersed in the day-to-day of building a business. We'll talk about the ups and downs that define their journeys. And the community's critical to their success. Today, I'm talking to Chef Edgarico and Sarah Martin Biggie, two East Austin restaurant tours who turned ancestral cooking techniques into the award-winning Nixta Takaria. Edgar, Sarah, welcome. Howdy, Guy. How are you? This story, I think, Edgar begins around 2016. You decide to go visit some family in Mexico. It's going to be a short trip, but it turns into a six-month journey. What happens on that trip? At this point, I'm 2016. I had left LA, and I was planning on moving to Austin. But I was like, "Has some time in between." And I was like, "Well, if I have a little bit of time, because being a chef and being a cook, you don't really have too many days off." And I was like, "Man, I want to discover new tacos and maybe new styles that maybe I wasn't familiar with." But then, probably after a week and a half of visiting the state where my parents are firm, which is the state of San Luis Potosí, Mexico, which is in the northern desert part of Mexico. And my grandmother was like, "Hey, you need to go down to Morelia. Your uncle is there. He has a friend who is a corn doctor." But then we went out with my uncle one day to meet him at one of these sites where they do research essentially for their corn. And I remember that was the day that it was like that spark, that moment that I was like, "Oh, shit. This is what I want to do." I remember going back there and my uncle was just like, "Peel back a stock." And I was like, "Okay." And I remember just pulling it back and seeing like purple corn for the first time. And I was like, "Whoa, I didn't even realize either where's purple corn." You know? Keep going back. And then you started seeing like these cross-pollinators of like a black and purple corn and keep going a little farther and you see a red corn. And it was just one of those experiences where I was like, "Whoa, okay. There's something to this." Proceeding then a few hours later that night to have a meal with those tortillas that his wife made. And it was at that point that I was like, "Oh, this is it. This is now what I want to focus my attention on. Nxtimalization of corn tortillas. And then I went deep into the rabbit hole." So was that spark? And which inspires you to really immerse yourself in the cuisine of Mexico. Learn about Nxtimalization, which is sort of alkalizing corn and turning it into dough, which is the dough that you would use for tortillas. You spend a couple weeks at one of the most famous restaurants in the world who hold doing a starage in internship. And eventually you make your way back to the United States to Austin with the dream of opening your own place. So yeah, after the journey, I decided to head back to Austin and try and figure out and get this thing going. But in the interim, I decided to get a job doing some catering on the side. And it just so happened to be that while I was doing that job, I met this young lady right here. Serendipity. Yeah, fate would have it because from what I understand, it was your last day, Sarah. And it was your first day working at this place. It was, you know, like you say, the universe was definitely looking out for us that day. And yeah, there was a, I feel like one of those moments in your life when you see someone walk in, they're like, damn, like, that girl's cute. Sarah, when you first met Edgar that night and you started to talk about all kinds of things and you listened to Edgar's story and his dreams. And what point after that did you decide, I want to join forces. I want to, I want to help make this happen. I kept him waiting for a second. So we had that conversation that evening and then I drove straight to Arkansas that night. So nine hour drive to go isn't my family. I was taking a little break in between the two, two jobs. So Millennial thing, DM times, let into those DMs. As for a couple of jokes, landed the jokes and then got, got the date. I mean, it's amazing because obviously your romantic partners, but you also became professional partners and you grew up in the restaurant business. I think your dad had a restaurant. So you begin this, what would be a three year long journey, planning and experimenting and trying to figure out what you wanted to build. Take me into that period of time. What were you doing? I had, you know, started my journey in Oklahoma and Tulsa, eventually got into finance, moved into event management, moved into South by Southwest, moved into HR. And for us, it just seemed really like a year and a young situation. One of the first reasons, I think we, I did fall in love with you. He made me a French omelette and I was like, okay, yeah, this is, this I can get used to. No color on it, perfect. Yeah, perfect. So we, we knew he had this like very special talent. He's been cooking since he's 10 years old. I call myself an expert generalist where my dad always told me anyone can learn anything. And so I sort of took that mentality all throughout my life. And if I wanted, you know, I got a moped, I learned how to do all the mechanics on it. You know, I had never worked in event management. We would do 40 events in a weekend for up to, you know, 10,000 people. HR had never done, but okay, I'm helping to open up all these different stores and other states for a different taco spot. Hospitality is something that we both grew up with. There's just a genuine warmth that comes from both Mexican and Iranian cultures. So for us, it felt very natural to do it. Not something exactly my mom wanted me to get into. It actually took her three years before she visited the restaurant. She was very unsure of if this, because I think she had saw with, you know, with her family, with the struggles that they had to go through opening a restaurant. It's not easy. You know, the restaurant industry, as you know, the margins aren't, you're not there to get rich. You know, like if you were truly in this game, you have to know that it's a long road. And to get to even opening your own restaurant, you either have to be really smart with how you open in, be not spending a lot of money, or you have you're very lucky that you were born potentially into wealth. And we did not fall into that latter category. You know, we happen to not have any investors. And for us, it was kind of a crazy decision at the beginning, because people were like, how are you? How are you not going to have any investors? How are you guys going to build this restaurant? And, you know, it's very hard, because no one's going to write you a loan or give you a small business loan if you don't have previous credit before that. So trying to open a restaurant, you're trying to say, hey, this is the idea I want to have. These are the projections we're hoping to make. You know, a bank's going to look at it, but they're probably going to just going to laugh you out of the building, because they're like, all right, cool. Where's your credit history? Like, oh, I don't have any. You're like, oh, yeah, personal. I've been out of business one per say. So that for us was an immediate eye opener. And we're like, okay, well, we don't have access to capital. Like we were hoping, but you know what? We do have a lot of great friends who are handy. We happen to find a space that was ironically a restaurant prior to us taking over. And it had the bones of a restaurant that was pretty much turned key almost situation minus installing a grease trap. But yeah, it was pretty much ready to go. So we're like, okay, if we can open this restaurant for $50,000, $75,000, we should be in the green pretty quick. That was our hope. You guys had almost the perfect partnership because you've got an operations partner. You could focus on the menu and on cooking. You were trying to do something both very traditional and also unorthodox. I mean, masa making the making the masa, making the tortillas, but also using duck coffee instead of pork for carnitas. You scrounge together all the money you have. You open this restaurant, I think, in October of 2019. And you're out there. You're out there in probably one of the taco capitals of the United States. Absolutely. And you're doing something a little bit out of the box. What was the response? Was it a reaction from people in the community when you opened it? We were just hoping that warning when we opened my brother had flown down. He was helping to hang up some last minute things. And I remember we just had a small little water dispenser. We had, I don't know, like 50 forks and 15 hours. It's going to be a neighborhood spot. It's a 600 square foot space. We'll see who shows up. And there was a line. There was someone who showed up three hours early to sit in a chair to just pull up. He's like, I want to be the first one to eat here. And we were like, wow, okay. And then, you know, didn't stop. I remember, I remember being in the kitchen because there's a window that faces all the way out. I remember the line getting bigger and bigger. And then right before we were about to open, I hadn't looked out in over an hour and I peeped out and the line was around the corner. And I was like, whoa, okay. I don't know if we're ready for this, but let's see what happens. So you open up the restaurant. There's lines around the corner. People are anticipating this. I think a few weeks into it, you get an amazing review from a well-known critic of the Texas Monthly. Pat Sharp, who says he's one of the best tacos in Texas. Unbelievable. More and more people are coming. And then, of course, pump the brakes. COVID. You shut down. You have to shut down. Well, in Texas, it was a little different. A little different. But people were still nervous to come. And so all of a sudden, the momentum slows. How did you keep things afloat? What happened? Did the community rally around you? Were you able to shift to take out orders pretty quickly? So we were just kind of monitoring what was happening in New York and LA and seeing some of the models that a lot of people were doing were like, whoa, okay, everyone's now shifting. It seems like to go the way the building is kind of set up. We were like, we could make this kind of a drive through situation if we need to for the time being. And we just kind of got to work with that. We ran like a burger pop-up. So we're doing smash burgers with different fries. And to at your point it, we kind of had a drive through situation. Oh, yeah. That was the day to remember, for sure. I remember looking out. There was like a car line a mile long down the street and I was like, and at that point it was that moment, it just switches in your head. You're like, put everything on the grill and just go. And it didn't stop for like an hour. And it was just boom, boom, boom. But we did what we could during the pandemic. I think everyone does. Yeah. I mean, you guys have been forced to try many different things because of circumstances, but you've also made decisions to try a bunch of different things. You're James Beard Award winner. You are a food and wine best-new restaurant. You received all these accolades as you have pivoted. And as you continue to grow and experiment, how are you using square tools to help you realize all of those different possibilities? I think it's definitely grown with us. So from the day we opened, we just had one of the square stands. We're like, oh, we'll be fine with this. We're really wrong. So our concept is a counter service concept. You order, you sit down. And then once you sit down, it becomes more full service. So from that point, we're like, okay, we're going to need things that are mobile with us, taking transactions on there. Anytime we do the Persian pop up, it's nice for us to be able to have someone outside with a stand, someone inside. And you're keeping it very seamless, but I think overall, truthfully, truthfully, every person I've worked with at Square has always championed and wanted to help. They'll say, hey, let's get on the line. Let's see what we can do. For our team, it's always easy. They know when the schedule's coming out. They're able to swap things. They're able to keep it moving without having to get in our hair too much. And it's also cool for me, too, to have seen the evolution of it. Because from when we, like, she was saying in 2020, when it started, I think they've been key to evolve with. They've released their little handheld product. That was for us a game changer. Because like, she was saying, we then were able to give people just a better service by not having to get up. Because after you've ordered, you've waited hours in line. We don't want you to have to get back in line. That defeats the purpose. That's not hospitable in any way. So having that access to, like, be able to walk up to a table and like, what else can we do? You guys, that drives revenue up for us, too, that gives you those extra sales that, you know, maybe that a couple extra duck carnitas that someone's jones in for at the end of the, at the end of the meal. But yeah, those little things that we've seen, like, the evolution of it. And now that even on your phone, like, that's for me has been the biggest game changer. Because like, I remember we were always doing a pop-up out in Marfa like a few weeks ago. And I forgot my square reader. And I was like, oh my god, how am I going to charge people? Like, I mean, I guess we could use cash. But then one of my employees was like, you know, you can just use your phone now, right? I was like, oh, wow. So that was huge game changer. So, you know, to be able to be out in the middle of the desert and all you need is just your phone and just tap, everyone's just tapping, boom, boom, boom. Like, we are truly living in the future. You guys have dealt with COVID, ice storms, heat waves, and everything in between. There was a ice storm in Texas in 2021 in the winter. A lot of people lost power, including you guys. And during that time, you made free food. You served people food who needed it. And it was sort of part of your reputation kind of begins to grow as a place where people know that they're going to be taken care of. Obviously, it's a restaurant's a business, but if people need help, they knew that they could come to you. Fast forward to 2023, a very hot summer. And the power gets shut off to the restaurant. And it's, initially, you think it's going to be a day or two, it turns into seven-month period where you cannot reopen. And there's a real chance you're going to go under. What, what did you do? What did you start to think about doing, Sarah? I started crying and I said, this is a death sentence for our restaurant. Because if you've never been in like building development or restaurant development, there's not two buckets or categories for a small business versus a business that has multi-million dollars in investment. So at that point, we're like, it's a survival mode. We're like, we did this on our own in the beginning with a few friends with a couple of personal loans. I don't know how we're going to survive without the community. So we threw out a line. You needed hundreds of thousands dollars to bring it up to code and repairs. And you decided to crowdfund that. I mean, you had no other choice. I guess expecting maybe some people would help. But it was actually an overwhelming response. We had originally asked, I think, for, we didn't know, we're like, okay, maybe 50k. Just permitting alone is about $15,000 for it to get approved. Electrical, structural, plumbing. It all, one can't get done without the other. So we went to crowdfunding and within two days, we had raised $120,000. And that, I balled my eyes out. I was just so overwhelmed that they were there, you know? That's the best in people. Somebody wrote on the crowdfunding site. Y'all fed us when we were frozen. You figured out how to make curbside happen when people were sick. You feed the community with the fridge and pantry. You lift other area chefs up. It's the least we could do. Yeah. I still get emotional thinking about it because we had to have this conversation with our team. We don't know if we're going to open. We don't know when we'll open. You're seeing 30 people who are depending on you and you don't have any answers. I think human resilience is such a beautiful thing and, you know, we had to do it time and time again. So it's almost, almost like your condition to it, but you never quite get used to it. You have to just push through it. I think we're just really, really grateful of that. Just the community rallied back and like, got us back on our feet because there was so much uncertainty. You don't know. You have no idea if you're ever going to reopen. The days that we were like, oh, is this going to be a quick reopening, turning the weeks, then turning the months, and to have gotten over that hump was this just huge weight off your back. We were like, okay, I think we're going to be okay, but it's the restaurant industry. It's always a new challenge every single day. Whether it's staffing, whether it's menu development, whether it's prices of eggs, which are skyrocketing right now, that you have to always be tinkering with every little part of it. There's no day that's ever the same, which is kind of the best and worst part of the restaurant industry in a way. A lot of highs and lows. A lot of highs and lows, for sure. Give me a sense of the vision. I mean, there's a lot of demand. You probably have a lot of people coming to you and saying, hey, can we open more restaurants? We love what you're doing. What do you imagine next step will be in five or ten years from now? I think we always talk about preservation versus evolution and being really cognizant about what are these opportunities and does it align with what we want to do? Coming through that reprimanding kind of killed my spirit a little, but I'm bouncing back. But I think eventually we talked about doing the inverse of New York style, which is instead of mostly Mexican with a little bit of Persian. It's mostly Persian with a little bit of Mexican, so that would be my little food baby. We're very excited. We're tinkering with that right now. I've running it as a pop-up and seeing the reception that it's getting. We're like, okay, I think the U.S. is ready for some Persian food in its life. It's not well represented at all. You don't really see too many Persian restaurants throughout the U.S. and the ones that you do are usually masked as Mediterranean or it's pretty much generally the same menu of grilled kebabs, but there's so much more depth to Persian food than just kebabs, so we're excited to share that with the world. Could you have imagined when you took that six-month trip to Mexico in 2016 that you would have won the James Beard Award, Food and Wine, all of these accolades, lines around the block, and the community rallying around you. Pretty amazing. Yeah, no, never in a million years. That was never my intention. You know, it was, I think for us, we just wanted to open up a business that we were proud of, that we can make our parents proud of, and just represent our culture to the fullest. And, you know, to people to have really seen and gravitated towards that, to where we're at now, it's beyond words to be honest. Like, you know, standing here with you on this set, like, you know, you would have never thought. Like, we just had a dream and an idea and a few bucks, and we just wanted to try and make it half it by any means necessary, and we grinded it out, and we still do every single day literally and figuratively. But yeah, it's, it's really cool to see just how this is all involved. Edgar, Sarah, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. You're officially part of the Taco Mafiana. Awesome, I can't wait. I'm Guy Ross, and you've been watching The Way Up, a series presented in partnership with Square. On our next episode, we sit down with three businesses in the midst of expansion. Here, from the owners and executives running Nista Takaria, the sports bra, and Charles Pan-Fried Chicken.