Taco Del Mar Decides The Time is Right For Eastward Expansion

By Melissa Allison and Monica Soto Ouchi
Seattle Times business reporters

Taco Del Mar is eastward bound, and fast.

The Seattle chain of Mexican-food restaurants has 235 stores reaching from Hawaii to Orlando, Fla. It plans to open another 100 by year's end stretching as far as Toronto and possibly Connecticut. And, in 2008, the company is looking to Australia and maybe India.

"The time is now," says Taco Del Mar President David Huether. "We need to take advantage of this market opportunity."

It's a niche that Chipotle, Qdoba and a handful of other chains are competing to fill — something called Mexican fast-casual that is a cut above Taco Bell but not full-service dining.

The average customer check at Taco Del Mar is $7.50, and it does a thriving lunch business that it hopes will lead to a strong dinner crowd. With that thought, the chain recently added platter options — two entrée choices like a taco and enchilada, plus rice, beans and condiments on a plastic plate rather than rolled in foil. The platters already account for more than 10 percent of sales companywide.

It also hired a new ad agency, Grey Advertising's Vancouver, B.C., office, whose first Taco Del Mar campaign launches in mid-March.

Executives decided in the summer of 2002 that Taco Del Mar needed to expand faster to cash in on the Mexican fast-casual bonanza. The company was a decade old then and had 52 stores, most in Seattle, but others in Montana, Alaska and as far south as Portland.

Its small group of 35 employees work at its South Lake Union headquarters and the chain's only company-owned restaurant on Queen Anne. Another 35 contractors known as "master developers" work closely with the company to spot new locations and find franchisees.

Taco Del Mar has a second restaurant concept called Slo Joe's Backyard BBQ that might eventually become available to franchisees. A test Slo Joe's location opened in South Lake Union two years ago, and a second one arrived on Mercer Island last year.

Some of Taco Del Mar's 26 owners have a stake in other restaurants as well.

John Schmidt, who co-founded Taco Del Mar with his brother, James, in 1992, opened the Southlake Grill near REI this month. He is also the principal investor in the Greenlake Bar & Grill and Eastlake Bar & Grill.

James Schmidt and Patrick Coyne are the principal investors in Paddy Coyne's Irish Pubs in South Lake Union and Tacoma.

— Melissa Allison