Randy Wyner on Third-Generation Recipes, Owner-Operator Franchising, and Taking Chronic Tacos Beyond Southern California

Anthony Codispoti (00:00)
Welcome to another edition of the inspired stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. As you listen today, let one idea shape what you do next. My name is Anthony Cotaspodi and today’s guest is Randy Weiner, founder and president of Chronic Tacos, a fast casual Mexican restaurant chain that lives by the motto.

Taco Life. Chronic Tacos serves made-to-order tacos, burritos, and bowls based on Randy’s third-generation family recipes. Walk into any location and you will see bold street art, hear punk rock, and feel a laid-back Southern California vibe. Since opening one 800-square-foot shop in Newport Beach in 2002, Randy has grown the brand to more than 30 restaurants across the US and Canada.

The company has appeared on several best Mexican chains lists and was invited back for the 2024 season at Angel Stadium. Media outlets like Authority Magazine and QSR have featured Randy’s journey of building a global franchise while keeping food authentic. Randy grew up in Orange County and credits his community for sparking the idea behind Chronic Tacos.

Randy (01:06)
you

Anthony Codispoti (01:20)
He now mentors new franchise owners and often speaks on industry podcasts about culture, growth, and customer experience. But before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Ad Back Benefits Agency. Listen, if you run a business, you are likely stuck in the cycle of rising insurance premiums. You’re paying more, but your team is getting less. And many people can’t afford coverage at all. We do things differently.

We offer a solution that provides your restaurant employees with unlimited access to doctors, therapists, and prescriptions that’s always free for them to use. But here’s where you really need to pay attention. Unlike every other employee benefit out there, our program puts more money into your company’s bank account. As an example, we recently helped a client increase net profits by $900 per employee per year. Results vary, but the consultation is free.

See if you qualify today at addbackbenefits.com. All right, back to our guest today, founder of Chronic Tacos, Randy Weiner. Thanks for making the time to share your story today.

Randy (02:24)
Thanks Anthony, thanks for having me on. I’m excited.

Anthony Codispoti (02:27)
All right, so how did you first get started in the restaurant industry before we move into Chronic Tacos?

Randy (02:33)
Okay, so when I was, think 16, my sister got me a job at Marie Calendars and I was a host, a host with the most and I became a waiter, so I was really excited to move up, but it was part time and it was kind of my first gig in the restaurant and seeing how it works and.

Eventually I was always in the kitchen and I was making pies and having fun. ⁓ But that was my first experience employed at a restaurant. ⁓ but I got another one. When I was 15, I worked at this big Irvine Park in Orange County and they had a concession stand and they did bike rentals. And I kept on begging the owners to let me get on the grill and they never did.

And I ran into them later in life and I was like, man, I really wanted to do that grill, but ⁓ they kept me in the bikes. But again, I was always like in the kitchen and helping the cook and stuff. I just, always loved the kitchen. It was just like the dynamics of a kitchen and making food and making people happy. But Marie Callender’s my first job at a restaurant. And then I did other things and managed companies and…

⁓ learned how to ⁓ run a business not even just a restaurant but like learn pnls and you know i never went to college so i i learned from working and ⁓ and get in the opportunities were given to me to ⁓ become in management roles and the owners would teach me everything which was really cool in my early twenties

Anthony Codispoti (04:14)
What kinds of companies were those?

Randy (04:16)
I was actually one of the youngest managers at Jiffy Lube. ⁓ I worked for a franchisee. They had about 27 stores and ⁓ it was in Orange County and I was 18 and I had a young child and I needed a full-time job and my buddies worked there and I started washing windows and vacuuming.

Randy (04:47)
checking tire pressure, washing windows at Jiffy Lube. It’s making five bucks an hour. And I got promoted to assistant manager within a year and then became a manager. And I started training all their stores and new hires. And then they taught me so much. And I was there for five, six years. They actually wanted me to go back east to New Jersey and open up a bunch of stores and.

I didn’t want to leave my kids and so I stayed. But Jiffy Loop taught me a lot about the behind the scenes of business.

Anthony Codispoti (05:24)
driving force in with chronic tacos, but where did the idea to actually start chronic tacos come

Randy (05:30)
Sure, so I was living in Newport Beach and there was no good taco shops in my little vicinity of that part of Newport Beach. There was one I could ride my bike to that was maybe about a mile away and I would go there quite a bit. I grew up in the city of Orange and we had taquerias on every corner and my mom was a teacher in Santa Ana and ⁓ I grew up eating, you know, taquerias, Mexican food and

There was nothing like that. was one and I would go there but their tortillas sucked. And I remember telling the owner, I’m like, man, these tortillas are terrible. And he was like, not, you know, he didn’t like hearing that. And I said to myself, I’m gonna open a taco shop one day and there was a need for it. And I was, I had some other businesses in the clothing industry and apparel and they just needed a taco shop in this little.

spot 800 square feet came of was going to be available. I found out I got the spot before it hit the market and it was a great story. The never been in the rest ever owned a restaurant. I called the broker and I said I hear this little store is going to be available. I would like it and she’s all what do want to do there? I’m all I don’t know yet and I said I’ll give you $2,000 non refundable.

give me two weeks to come up with an idea. And I thought she would be like, no way. She’s like, okay. And she took the money and two weeks went by and I was like, what am I gonna do? Do I do a taco shop? Do I do a retail store? I didn’t know. And then the co-founder, Dan Bielo, I was having breakfast and he came in and I’m like, I need to talk to you. I got 24 hours to make a decision on this spot or I lose two grand.

And I’m like, what do you need in this little center? And he’s all tacos, Randy. We don’t have any tacos. And I said, yeah. And my other company was Chronic Industries. And I said, well, what do we name it? He’s all chronic, chronic tacos. And I was like, OK. So I called the broker and I said, OK, I want to do a taco shop. And it wasn’t zoned for it. I had to get a CUP and change the zoning. It was retail.

And she’s like, if you can get it done, it’s yours. And that’s how it started, was she giving us a chance.

Anthony Codispoti (08:06)
So you had other businesses, what was Chronic Industries?

Randy (08:10)
a licensee for Disney for Mattel. We did hats and t-shirts. I did a lot of t-shirts in the music industry for bands. Then I started getting into the surf like with Ripcrawl O’Neill. ⁓ We would do like stuff for Volcom for their marketing. And we had a t-shirt factory and made t-shirts and I did my own brand called Chronic Industries and would sell it all at the beach out of my trunk and out of my house. ⁓

and just sold merch. And then I started printing for people and I’m like, oh, this is cool. I can get paid and it’ll fund my clothing company. I ended up selling when we got into the tacos and we started expanding, I sold it to my employees and they’re still around. They’re still printing t-shirts.

Anthony Codispoti (08:55)
What’s behind the name chronic?

Randy (08:58)
So, that’s a good one. It’s a funny story. My oldest son, his mother’s maiden name is Chronic. But it’s spelled C-R-O-N-I-C-K. But he’s Jacob Chronic. And we weren’t married, so his birth certificate said Jacob Chronic Winer. On his birth certificate. At school, they’d be like, Jacob Chronic Winer?

So when he got older, he’s like, dad, the whiner name is just tough, you know? I really just want to be chronic. And I was like, all right. And so he’s Jacob Chronic. And when we did the taco shot, or when I did Chronic Industries, I named it after that name, Chronic, but I spelled it C-H-R-O-N-I-C, which was the popular kind of chronic cannabis and all that stuff.

So, and chronic, you know, in the dictionary is excessive, repetitive, know, kind of addicting, whatever, you’re always gonna want it, it’s always hitting you. So I thought that would be cool because you got people that understand chronic in a medical term, like excessive, repetitive, like my dad is like chronic, that’s, I don’t get it. But then when I was the time, I was 27, I was like, yeah, chronic, know, people will know, but they won’t know.

⁓ you know, it was weird at first because when we started expanding, landlords were like, what is this? Like they, once we started the getting the momentum, it was just, I always wanted chronic tacos to be a household name. And people are like, there’s no way, there’s no way. And it is now and it’s gotten to that point where chronic is a normal thing, know, chronic tacos. ⁓ so that that’s.

where the name came from.

Anthony Codispoti (10:57)
So I’ve never been to a Chronic Tacos yet. What’s the customer experience like?

Randy (11:00)
Good.

So, you know, I also come from Nordstrom’s and when I was with, ⁓ when I left Jiffy Lube, I ended up opening a company for Nordstrom’s, valet company, and I ended up working for Nordstrom’s as well. But I got my customer service ⁓ degree in Jiffy Lube. We treated customers. were taught, like, my district manager actually came from restaurants.

So Jiffy Loop was managed like a restaurant, super clean, great service, above and beyond. Then I went to Nordstrom’s Nordstrom’s customer service. So on point customers always right. So I kind of, you know, that seven years, eight years of my life was all about customer service. And when I was a kid going to taquerias and you know, you know, there was always someone’s a language barrier, but I didn’t get great service. You know, they were just like, what do you want? You know, and it was just like, here you go. It’s out the door. You’re gone.

I really, really, we really wanted Chronic Tacos to have super good service. know, hey, how are you? You know, conversation, recommendations. And that was what I was used to was having a clean spot and great service and obviously good food. But, you know, when you walk into a Chronic Tacos, I want it to feel like you’re at home or you know everybody and they all know you. And we’ve gotten there where, you know, we have customers three times, four times a week, same, you know, same customers.

And ⁓ so the customer service was so important for us in the beginning. I knew if I had really good service and good food and a clean environment, people will come back.

Anthony Codispoti (12:43)
So tell us about

the tacos. Where do the recipes come from?

Randy (12:46)
So one of our original partners, Jason Bonilla, when we first got this taco shop, I called my good friend that I went to elementary school with and said, Jason, you they owned a bunch of markets in Santa Ana. He had a meat company. made, you know, they they’ve been in the business 40 plus years. And I said, Jason, I need recipes. You know, I want some real authentic recipes, you know.

And he brought in grandma’s third generation recipes. He partnered with us. He helped us with all the food. We ended up buying them out a year later, but, you know, he came in and brought all his family recipes. And, you know, I’m very thankful for the Bonilla’s. They’re a big part of this. And ⁓ that’s where I got all the recipes from the Bonilla’s.

Anthony Codispoti (13:35)
And so is it like a standard menu? Like here we’ve got like 10, 20 things on the menu you pick from it. Is there a lot of customization that takes place? What’s, how does this work?

Randy (13:46)
Yeah, so it’s all

made to order. ⁓ was a picky eater, so I really wanted it to be how you want it. you know, this, we opened, Chipotle was just coming out to California. I don’t even think we had one yet, but right when we opened, think they opened one in our area or something, but I wanted it made to order. I don’t want hot sauce, I like Verde.

So it was so important to make it custom and I wanted it to be custom by the customer. However they want it, we make it. I was always like, we have these awesome breakfast burritos and people will be like, oh, can I get egg whites? And I’m like, absolutely. It’s all on the menu, but if I got eggs in the back, I’ll make you egg whites. And so it was always like, whatever they want, just make it happen. If we have the ingredient, make it happen. And that’s what we did. And when we first opened,

You know, I was running other businesses and I would work Tuesday nights, Thursday nights and all day Sunday. And I’m making tacos and my partner, Dan, we’re in it. Like, you know, we were grinding and making tacos, mopping floors like we did it all. you know, I don’t, think it’s so important when you have a business, you got to know your business from every part of it. And, you know, we were on the schedule, you know, making tacos for years and. ⁓

And it was so important, know, right when they walk in, I’m the first person like, hey, what’s up? How are you? High fives. You what are you getting your carne asada burrito? But the customization was really important to us and we wanted it to go quickly. It’s only 800 square feet. There’s four bar stools and it’s one of our top grossing stores to this day. And we knew everyone, it’s at the beach. So.

It was just in and out. you couldn’t, you know, you don’t want people waiting forever. So we, we just got this, this rhythm and you know, music’s going and we’re having fun and, and, ⁓ you know, it was, it was getting people in and out and giving them great food. ⁓ and how they like it, how, know, whatever they want on it.

Anthony Codispoti (15:57)
So you mentioned the egg whites. Hey, can I get egg whites? Sure, I’ll get some eggs for you. I’ll get you some egg whites. What are some other fun toppings, accessories that people get that maybe they wouldn’t find at a Chipotle?

Randy (16:10)
Well, like we, so it’s funny, because we’re set up, you you made the order, you know, but our menu, like breakfast burritos, our chorizo burritos are so good. Hands down, probably the best breakfast burrito I’ve ever had. And I eat all the time Mexican food everywhere I go. It doesn’t have to be chronic. I go everywhere just to try it. But breakfast burritos are big, which Chipotle doesn’t have. We do a chronic fries, where it’s like nachos, but with French fries.

⁓ that a franchisee actually came up with and it’s a big seller. The Cali burritos with fries and guac and carne asada. ⁓ Our carnitas we cook for three hours. Everything’s homemade. Like there’s our hot sauces we make, we’re cooking tomatillos, our verde, our red, our pico de gallo, our guacamole we make almost every day. So it’s so important that we wanted this fresh, you know,

real quality food. ⁓ like, you know, we do, we do fajitas, fajita veggies. We, you know, we cater towards vegetarians. We have impossible meat. ⁓ So it’s, you know, quesadillas, nachos. Yeah, our menu’s big. And, you know, we always look at it and we analyze it and it’s so hard to take items off. And, know, Chipotle’s model is very simple. Four, four, I think four or five items.

Anthony Codispoti (17:21)
It’s a lot of choice, a lot of choice.

Randy (17:36)
But we always say we want to be different than Chipotle and like our fish tacos, our Mahi Mahi, it’s the best fish taco I’ve ever had, ever had. It’s so good. And I’m not just saying that. It is so good. Our fish tacos and you know, our biggest seller is the carne asada burrito. But we just felt we wanted to have things that were different. Our bowls, you know, we do salads, but we do this rad bowl. ⁓ And you know, it’s just

We wanted to be a little bit different, a lot different at the toilet.

Anthony Codispoti (18:09)
So, so Randy,

take me back to the opening of that first store the first day. What was it like? People lined up around the corner.

Randy (18:16)
No, not at all. The first day we opened, me and my two partners, we’re working it. I think we did $500 that day. you know, at first I was like, okay, I’m not going to get rich off this, but it’s fun. So, but you know, people in Newport, they knew us, but they’re like, who are these gringos?

trying to make tacos and I’m like, just come and try it. You’re gonna love it. Just try it. And you know, so I think our first day was like 500 bucks and then we started doing, you know, almost a thousand and when we hit a thousand dollars a day, we’re like, my gosh, this is amazing. ⁓ And I think like my first checks or whatever distribution I got was like $500 a month or something. I was like, okay, well, 2002.

Anthony Codispoti (19:08)
And what year was this?

Okay.

Randy (19:11)
And by the way, it took us a year to build this thing out. We had no idea what we were doing. And, you know, I signed a lease and all my buddies were like, I can be your contractor. I’m like, okay, cool, you’re in. And they did it all wrong and we had to redo it. And it took us a year to open this because we had no clue what we were doing. Now we open them in 90 days, but it was such a learning curve. So when we finally opened,

We were just like, my gosh, is this real? And, ⁓ and yeah, we were not busy. We were slow. And then we got a write-up about six, six, seven months after we opened and people started coming, starting to get busier and people were like, wow, the food’s great. We started getting really good reviews and it was the daily pilot. When people used to read newspapers, it came out and I’m not kidding. The next day we had a line.

down the corner. And it was like an older group that came. Like I always say, go like, you know, what’s your age, age group? You know, your demographic, I’m all two to 80. And ⁓ the newspaper brought these people that don’t live at the beach that came up from the hills and families. And they just read this really great article that they did on us. And from that day on, it was packed. People were driving from LA.

from Riverside, 45 minutes to come try Chronic Tacos. Yeah, it just said, you know, these two local guys from Newport Beach, you know, opened up a Chronic Tacos and they talked about all the food. They went through the whole menu. It was a really big article. And it was like front page of the Daily Pilot, which is a local kind of paper. And, but man, it made it.

Anthony Codispoti (20:43)
just because of this one article. Wow, what did the article say? What was the write-up like?

Randy (21:07)
so different, like where all these people were coming and we were tripping. And I remember like, we were so busy. We were starting to do $5,000 a day. And this is back in 20 years ago, over 20 years ago. And we were like, oh my gosh. And back then everyone paid cash. You know, they barely used debit cards, but it was like, we were just, what the heck? And, that article really set us up. And then when people came,

They got what the article said. got good food. then, you know, after a year, we were just like, wow, this is awesome. We got to open up more of these. I ended up selling all my businesses and I’m like, we’re doing this. I’m focusing on chronic tacos and we’re going to take this to the next level. And and then, you know, we opened up our second store two years later and we picked this. Yeah, yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (21:57)
Hang on, sorry to interrupt, Randy. Where did

you get the money to open up the first store?

Randy (22:01)
We paid for it ourselves. My partner Dan was working at Home Depot. I had my printing business. We spent $90,000 to open the first store, which was very cheap. We didn’t change the floors. We had ceramic tile, slippery tile in the lobby. It was done very low budget, but we were new. We didn’t know. But yeah, we spent $90,000. We put it in ourselves.

It was our own money and, ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (22:34)
So just from savings,

yeah, you guys had had jobs and other businesses. And so you start this things, you know, they start out slow, they start building, then this article comes out and it is just like throwing, you know, rocket fuel on right. And so what’s the timeline where you start thinking about the second store? How long between the first store and the second store?

Randy (22:38)
Yeah.

Randy (22:49)
Yeah.

Two years. So two years went by and we were solid. Our numbers were big. We were doing over a million. Now that store does like two million a year, but we were solid numbers. We were killing it. And that’s when we started getting a lot of calls. So people would be calling us saying, we want to open a chronic tacos. How do we open a chronic tacos? we, I’m franchising was, I didn’t even really know too much about it. I mean, I knew about franchising, but

You know, never got into it. And we started getting a lot of calls after about a year. And we picked one buddy and we said, we’ll partner with you. You fund it and we’ll run it. And we wanted to pick a city that was close to us. We were getting a lot of people from Huntington beach, come into Newport, you know, three miles, whatever, a couple of miles away. And so we picked a spot in Huntington beach. wanted to keep it not too close, but

you know, the next city over where I knew we had, ⁓ we had a following. So we opened up in Huntington two years later, and we opened up with a line out the door. It’s packed. And we were like, okay. And then we got more calls and then more calls. And then about 2006, we had three corporate stores. ⁓ we’re like, you know, instead of partnering with everybody, let’s look into this franchising model. And,

So I started talking to, you one of my mentors was John Galaherty from Wiener Snitchels. ⁓ And there was a chicken guy, think like Charles Chicken, Moe, he was talking, you I was picking his brain on franchising, called some attorneys, started picking their brains on franchising. And in 06, we started franchising.

Anthony Codispoti (24:47)
And so you’d had three corporate locations at that time. And so you continued to develop corporate locations, but put a lot more energy now into growing the franchise side of things. Is that right?

Randy (24:56)
Yeah,

yeah, I really wanted to take it national. And, you know, we had three super successful stores, we knew the operations, we knew how to build them now. And so we started franchisee and we only franchise to friends and family. It wasn’t like, you know, there was no, it was all just people calling us and, and people we kind of knew. And we started franchising. And, you know, it was a

was very, we were very, you know, at first, you know, I’ll be honest, when we first started, I was like, we can open these anywhere and make money. And, you know, no, that’s not how it works. There’s a lot of due diligence you have to do. And you know, that takes years and years of learning and having the right systems to know, you know, where you’re going to pick locations, because like, I would have a guy call me and say, I got to have one across the street from my house. And I’m like, all right, you’re in.

And now it’s a lot different. We’re very particular who we franchise with, what kind of experience they have. We run the demographics on the locations, parking lot, daytime population, incomes. There’s so much to it to have a successful taco shop. And that takes experience and years of learning the do’s and the don’ts.

Anthony Codispoti (26:17)
So what is it that you’re looking for in a franchisee?

Randy (26:20)
You know, we’re looking. We love owner operators and when you have we we we don’t consider ourselves like a corporate chain. We’re we’re you know they’re they’re owned locally and we want people to feel like the owners there and they don’t have to. You know they can put a manager in and have a good team, but I really love when owners are. That’s how we were. We were in our restaurants meeting the customers talking to the customers.

So they had a name. So when they went to a Chipotle or somewhere else, they felt like they were cheating on us. And they would be like, Randy, I’m so sorry. I had to go to Chipotle because there was no chronic tacos in this area. And I’m so sorry. But that’s what I felt was so important about this brand and what’s behind the brand is that we’re all local. We’re owners that care. We’re in it.

Now I do have franchisees that have great management teams and they do other things and they go to their store a couple days a week. But in the beginning, they were very hands-on. that’s big thing for us is if we have a big group that comes in, they’ll have a management team and have a good staff in place. But owner-operators are great. ⁓ Understanding business. I can teach you how to roll a burrito. I can teach you how to make a taco. ⁓ But you’ve got to have some kind of business.

mind where you understand numbers, PNLs, and we teach, we have the chart of accounts all set up for your accountant, and we do a heavy eight week training program where we’re with you every day. But you gotta have some kind of business behind you that whether it’s any business really, just understanding numbers. That’s a big key too. And then,

Like if somebody calls me and is like, know, Randy, I want to retire and open a taco shop in Florida. And I’ll be like, I love the idea, when you restaurants, this is not something you just retire and open. You’ve got to be involved, you know? And, ⁓ and, so you get a lot of that, but most people understand, you know, especially nowadays restaurants, you know, it’s work, but it’s fun work. And, you know, we have a good time doing it.

Anthony Codispoti (28:40)
What kind of personalities are you looking for?

Randy (28:43)
⁓ you know, outgoing, vocal, not shy. ⁓ you know, they’ve, they’ve, you know, they’ve got, they’re, if they’re a shy person or not, like the talkers, you gotta have the manager that’s doing that. But, ⁓ you gotta have personality. You know, you gotta be able to solve problems. You know, you gotta be able to think fast, ⁓ work hard. ⁓ you know, I’m not above any of my employees.

If I walk in and there’s toilet paper or the toilet, something needs to be cleaned, I clean it. And getting respect from your staff and people you work with, your coworkers, because you’ll do whatever they do. And that was a big thing ⁓ with Chronic Tacos was when I go and open stores, I go and train the stores with my trainers because I want them to know what the personality and the culture is and where it came from.

and how I talk to customers and how I become friends with the customers and I’ll do anything, you know, for the restaurant. Like there’s nothing I’m not gonna touch or do and they respect that.

Anthony Codispoti (29:51)
So most of the locations are in California currently, some in Canada.

Randy (29:55)
Yeah, most

of her in California. I got a Vero Beach, Florida, one in Atlanta, Alpharetta. We got a few in Canada and then, but mostly in SoCal, but one up in Washington too.

Anthony Codispoti (30:09)
So when you’re doing sort of that hub and spoke like you originally described, like, hey, I’m going to go over to Huntington Beach because it’s just a few miles away and we’ve got a following. From a logistical standpoint, that makes things a lot easier, right, to get sort of the ingredients, the foodstuffs there. But when you open up in Washington or Canada or Florida or Georgia, was that a strain on kind of the supply chain or were you able to easily find vendors that could get you what you needed there?

Randy (30:37)
Well, when we started to get bigger and we knew we needed a national supplier. So, you you go with the big dogs and the big step, it’s a lot of work because you want your products to be the same as buying from the little guys. And, you know, that was a big challenge was making sure distribution and our products are the same. You know, we

Our meat cuts were so, you know, it has to be perfect. It can’t be something else in another state. you know, we did a really good job doing our due diligence and making sure that everything that we have is the same products that we have here, but we needed a national distributor. So that was a big, a big thing for us to get to the, you know, move up to the big guys. And, you know, we’ve, we’ve had different distributors and

We know what we’re doing now, so it’s a lot easier when a store is open. I can supply anywhere in the United States and Canada ⁓ with our suppliers.

Anthony Codispoti (31:42)
So how well does the concept translate into other states? It’s one thing when it starts out in SoCal and like you guys catch fire and so then it’s easy to open up a few miles away and a few miles away again. But then you go to Florida, you know, do people know you? How does it work?

Randy (31:59)
Yeah, you know,

it’s so funny because we were always worried about like, what do we do in the state? And, you know, a lot of people haven’t heard of us, but because we started in Southern California, Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, Corona Del Mar, people vacation out here. So we would get so many vacationers when we would open up on the East Coast. They’re like, my gosh, I’ve been to Chronic Tacos. This is crazy. And then they tell all their friends and

So, you know, at the beginning, yeah, I’d say like 30 % of the people have kind of heard of us, maybe 20 % because of vacationing or, know, they didn’t have social media like it is now. So it was really people just visiting California and Chronic Tacos was either right next to one of their beach houses that they rented or, so it would be fun when we would go to a new town and people are like, oh, I know, I’ve heard of this or I’ve eaten at it in Newport.

Anthony Codispoti (32:34)
That’s a lot.

Randy (32:57)
But it did, it’s definitely, and then I feel like a lot of the locals would be like, they just wanted good tacos, you know? There’s not a lot of great tacos in other states. California, it’s everywhere. ⁓ So when we would open it in these other states, people were like, my gosh, we’ve been waiting for like a California taco shop. And ⁓ so it was received very well.

Anthony Codispoti (33:20)
And so franchising opportunity now, are there specific geographies that you’re looking for, not looking for? Is it pretty much all of the US and Canada?

Randy (33:30)
Yeah, all of the US and Canada. ⁓ know, I’ve got like South Carolina. I’m working on a big deal right now. ⁓ But yeah, we want to expand because we have the stores out there. So now it’s like Florida, you know, ⁓ Nashville. There’s a there’s a lot of states are on the radar, but we are you know, we want to hit everywhere. The whole US I it’s time like we you know, we’ve built this up and now you know we this this year we really.

are on track already. We’ve got another store in LA coming. We got one up in Danville coming in near San Francisco. ⁓ And then I’m working on a big deal in South Carolina right now.

Anthony Codispoti (34:12)
know, most are most of these ⁓ franchise referrals, are they coming from word of mouth? Are you working with brokers? How is it you guys are growing right now?

Randy (34:22)
Yeah, a lot is word of mouth. usually when we receive an application, it says it visited existing location. So we get a lot of vacationers that come out to Southern California, try the tacos, say, my gosh, we need one of these at home. ⁓ Also, Google searches. There’s not a lot of franchises for, you know, taco shops unless you want to get Del Taco or a Taco Bell. you know, people kind of want something different, especially out of state.

⁓ And we do work with brokers, so we’ll get calls from brokers with interested parties. So we kind of work with everybody.

Anthony Codispoti (35:00)
Yeah. Can you hold up your knuckles and should taco life? What is that?

Randy (35:03)
Yeah, taco life.

So Taco Life to us, have fun, enjoy. Life is good. ⁓ You know, being in Southern California, taco shops are everywhere. So, you know, for us, Taco Life was really like doing what you want, eating how you want, enjoying music, the California kind of vibe, very chill, relaxed, no stress, you know, that kind of thing.

Anthony Codispoti (35:35)
Ties into the chronic theme we were talking about earlier. So for those folks who are just taking in the audio version and the video version, can see Randy’s got quite a bit of beautiful body art and specifically on his knuckles, he has tattoos that says taco light. So that’s what we were addressing there. ⁓ Fun stuff. So ⁓ I understand you guys have done a lot in terms of like different partnerships and promotions over the year.

Randy (35:38)
Yup.

Anthony Codispoti (36:03)
Is there a particular collaboration that you feel has really captured the brand spirit?

Randy (36:09)
⁓ Yeah, we’ve done a lot. You know, I like the you know when we do like no kids hunger like go get no kids get hungry or no kids hunger ⁓ You know, we did a lot. ⁓ homeless stuff We do a lot in like LA Long Beach where we feed the homeless. I think it’s really fun and good For the for the community. We want to give back like whenever we do have a new location pop up It’s always like first thing get in the community and give back

you know, and help people. And that was a big part of us is giving back and helping veterans. We’ve done a ton of stuff with veterans. That’s huge. You my dad’s a veteran and my grandpa. ⁓ you know, those kinds of things I really enjoy doing. ⁓ And then we have really cool sponsorships. Like we’ve done big music festivals and partners with Live Nation at a point and…

⁓ You know, that was a big part of us was being in these festivals and serving people and doing all the backstage stuff and VIPs and, ⁓ you know, and putting our food all over. ⁓ Angels Stadium, Angels has been a great partner, you know, with Major League Baseball ⁓ and having… Yeah, we have three, three taco shops. We’ve been there, I think, 15 years. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (37:22)
So you have a stand inside the stadium?

Randy (37:31)
And I was actually just there for Monster Jam and went to all the taco shops and it’s just it’s really cool to see, know, in such a big platform and all these people eating there. And that’s exciting always for us, for the brand.

Anthony Codispoti (37:47)
Tell us about the work that you’ve done with veterans.

Randy (37:50)
So we’ve done a bunch of stuff with veterans, whether it’s giveaways, food, ⁓ we discount veterans, we them part of the proceeds. ⁓ We’ve done quite a few things with different veteran groups and that was big.

Anthony Codispoti (38:10)
And when you guys come into a new city and you want to get involved with the community and you specifically mentioned feeding the homeless, what does that look like? Are you sort of walking up and down the streets handing out tacos? Is there like a location where you sort of tried to bring them to?

Randy (38:27)
Yeah, like in Long Beach, we would just set up shop and whether we’re grilling in the parking lot, there was always be like organizers who would invite us to come in and then we would come in and serve food and serve a couple thousand homeless people. We’ve done that quite a bit. We have a taco truck that we bring out ⁓ if we can get it there. But we get calls all the time where people are like, hey, are you interested in doing this and helping this community?

If it works for us, then we’re in.

Anthony Codispoti (38:59)
Yeah. You know, it’s interesting that you mentioned there aren’t a lot of ⁓ taco shop options for franchising and never really occurred to me yet. You’ve got your, know, Taco Bell and Del Taco and, big chains like that. But I mean, it just sort of highlights how competitive the restaurant landscape is. Are there some other things that you guys are doing to stay ahead of the curve, whether it’s new tech, food items, even further enhancements to the customer experience?

Randy (39:30)
all the time. You have to evolve. You know, from 20 years ago, it’s so different, like just social media and where you market, you know, radio, commercials, bus ads, like it’s so different now. ⁓ And yeah, it’s it’s such a change on on what we how we think of things. But evolving was a big part of us. We always wanted to we didn’t want to get stale or like, you know,

So we’re always changing artwork, changing music, the atmosphere of the taco shop, evolving the inside of the taco shop, the aesthetics, the chairs, the paint colors. It’s so different from what it used to be as far as just evolution of what people are inspired or art artists that do our, we do custom murals, graffiti artists that, if you look at our old one of like Day of the Dead, that was a,

a big inspiration for years and now it’s more graffiti art and bright colors. But it’s, you know, focus groups, knowing what customers are looking for when they come to a restaurant. The music, how loud you play the music. But we were always, we’re always looking at everything and, you know, third party deliveries, Grubhub, Uber Eats, DoorDash, you know, that’s a huge part of the business nowadays. People, you know,

10 years ago, I would have not even thought about it, but it’s such a big part of the business and perfecting that and making it easy for our staff to do, because it’s all however you want it. So sometimes our tickets are like, no, this, no, this, yes, this, yes, this. So, ⁓ but evolving for that, evolving the marketing part of it to stay true and being out there and, you know, food influencers are huge now. So it’s.

teaming up with these food influencers and having them in your taco shops and talking about you. ⁓ It is so big with the marketing side of it. But yeah, we’ve had to evolve a lot and we keep evolving and we’re always looking. I mean, we’re on meetings daily with food influencers, marketing department, what’s hot, what’s not, what’s working, what isn’t working. ⁓ It’s a daily thing and it’s just…

staying on top of it and not going, okay, we’re good now. Let’s just leave it the way it is.

Anthony Codispoti (42:01)
And so a food influencer, this is probably somebody young on Instagram or TikTok that’s coming in and sort of doing like live reviews of your product.

Randy (42:10)
Yes, yes. Well, yeah, so there’s some big influencers out there, food influencers have millions of followers and they’ll come and do, you know, they’ll come and eat a burrito and tell you what they think of it. And it’s huge. You lost attraction. There’s some really big ones and, you know, even small ones are great. It’s just anybody coming in and posting and talking about us is great and spreading it to their

you know, their fans and people that follow them and might not have heard of us.

Anthony Codispoti (42:44)
And when you guys open up a new location, call it like a franchise location in a different part of the country or in Canada, are you sending your graffiti artists there to do the inside of the stores or do you ever recruit local talent for that?

Randy (42:54)
Mm-hmm.

We have before, we like sending our guy Tuzer. He’s awesome and he’s amazing graffiti guy. We’ve sent him all over the world and he loves it. ⁓ And so we send our guy out. We’ve had a couple local artists do stuff, but it’s just not the same. ⁓ He’s so good. So we send him up. His name’s Tuzer. Yeah. Tuzer knows our vibe and he does all, he’s big time. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (43:18)
And what’s his name?

Toosr, Toosr knows your vibe and he knows how to put it down.

Randy (43:28)
He’s big time, but he’s rad. So we try to get him to all our spots to do it. And once in a while we’ve had some others, ⁓ he’s definitely, we send him up.

Anthony Codispoti (43:29)
Yeah.

Randy, know, in my experience behind every success story, there’s usually a chapter that almost broke someone. Can you share a serious challenge that you’ve overcome, personal or professional, how you got through that and what you learned?

Randy (43:55)
Yeah, no, think personal, ⁓ you know, in this business and any business, I, I’m a big believer of balance. And, you know, when we first 10 plus years, 15 years, I was so into just work tacos, you know, I lost balance, you know, I’ve got kids and family and, know,

Business was just over, it just took over. And it was great, everyone loved it. My family was fine, everybody knows that I’m working, but getting older and doing this for over 22 years, ⁓ the biggest thing was I wish I would have focused in on balance. And my partner, Mike Mohamed, he was a big teacher to me to say, Randy, you always gotta have balance. You gotta have your family, you gotta go.

If you don’t have balance, you’ll go nuts. And I wish I knew that earlier on, you know, having the balance and not, you know, being overwhelmed, not overwhelmed, but just always work was first. Tacos was first. I got to blow this up. I want this to be huge. And you know, kids grow up. I got grandkids now. It’s crazy how fast things have gone where I wish I would have had a little bit more balance in my life. ⁓ But

Anthony Codispoti (45:21)
So your partner said you need balance or you’re gonna go crazy. Did you ever go crazy? Was there a flip of the switch that happened?

Randy (45:28)
⁓ I think like, know, watching him, you know, he’s very successful and watching him, you know, balance his life and family, I learned from it. And, you know, ⁓ I have a, if I get into something, I get in it all the way. And, ⁓ you know, he helped teach me how to have some balance and that’s made me sane and say, okay, you know what?

I might not need to take this call right this second. It’s still to this day. I’m very close to the franchisees. They have my cell phone. I might call me anytime. It’s very personal. If I see a phone call, I jump on it. But now if I’m with my kids or doing something, I’ll be like, can I call you back? Is it an emergency? They’re like, no, no, no, just call and just say hi. Learning balance from someone that was working 17 hours days.

⁓ you know, it took, it took years to kind of get there, but now, ⁓ you know, I, feel it. And I always say, you know, if I mentor or anything, I always say, always have balance, always have balance, you know, you can do it. I do. I do. I, I’ve, know, we have a great team. My partners are awesome. Our corporate structure are, you know, we have, you know, franchise support managers. It’s not, you know, the marketing team. So we all have what we’re good at.

Anthony Codispoti (46:37)
Do you feel like you have that balance now?

Randy (46:56)
And it’s not overwhelming. We all split the workload and what we do and it’s awesome.

Anthony Codispoti (47:05)
What’s your superpower, Randy?

Randy (47:07)
I love people. I can make you laugh and have fun, even if we’re deep in the trenches. I love making people happy. And that was the big thing about food was how many people would be like, man, these tacos are so good. And that made me really happy. yeah, there’s a lot of hard work, but it pays off when…

People come back and see you and the relationships I’ve built and the people that I have around me. Chronic Tacos has done so much for me in my life and ⁓ I’m so blessed, so blessed.

Anthony Codispoti (47:51)
Is there any daily habits that help get you started, keep you on track, maybe help you find that balance that you’re looking for?

Randy (48:00)
You know, it’s like, you when I wake up in the morning, I set goals. I don’t make them too crazy. You you set three to five things that I really need to accomplish today. If you overwhelm yourself, you won’t get them done. And then you feel like you’re messing up communication. You know, we have meetings daily with all our departments and, ⁓ you know, I wake up, I have a cup of coffee, enjoy the birds singing.

And then I go hit up taco shops and my schedule, I love being in the taco shops. I’m not a big sit in the office. I like to be in the shops, working with franchisees. ⁓ I love when people wanna buy a chronic tacos and I’m on the phone calls and going over everything. For me, I feel my job is to educate people that wanna get into franchising a chronic tacos.

Whether they franchise us or somebody else or any other business, I really feel my duty is to teach you what it’s like and educate you on owning a restaurant. Yeah, it sounds fun and great, but there are challenges and there things that you got to do. And I’m very upfront and open. And most of the time people are like, yep, nope, I get it. So for me, it’s really important to educate people about franchising.

Whether it’s food or anything, but you know that’s my my job is to when somebody wants to open up a taco shop And I love that conversation. I love being totally upfront honest. There’s no BS. This is how it is ⁓ You know and that makes things easy when you just tell it out is

Anthony Codispoti (49:47)
Yeah. ⁓

You mentioned a mentor or two earlier. Anybody else you want to give voice to that’s been helpful in your path?

Randy (49:59)
⁓ you know, my partners, Mike, Dan, Dave, Dan, Bielo, everybody that, you with my partners, we all do different things. You know, Mike’s a financial guy, numbers driven, super smart. Dan’s also an operator who’s super smart, real estate, knows everything. Dave’s does our marketing. He’s another brother. So it’s like the team that we have, everyone is good at what they.

are pointed to, know, ⁓ Randy, you’re great at, you know, being in the taco shops training, ⁓ vetting ⁓ Chronic Tacos potential franchisees out. ⁓ But, you know, John Gellardi, passed away, but he started Wiener Snitchels. You know, he was a big part of my life in the beginning and gave me the do’s and don’ts you know, was just a great guy and…

You know, I feel now like when people ask me, you know, what do you need to succeed? You always need a mentor. You need somebody to tell you what not to do. And even me when we were young and you know, John Galardio say, you shouldn’t do that. We’re like, Oh no, we’re going to do it anyway. And if you know, didn’t work or something. So, um, I always remember, you know, uh, you know, my dad’s a big mentor, uh, you know, business guy, not a restaurant guy, but just a corporate world. Um,

But it was listening to them and saying, they’ve already been through this. And so now I get calls from people opening up restaurants or whatever and they try to pick my brain. And first thing I say is you need a mentor. You need someone to guide you to the do’s and the don’ts. And ⁓ that’s so big. People just.

Anthony Codispoti (51:47)
How does somebody find

a mentor?

Randy (51:49)
You know, it’s hard. mean, I know there’s probably consultants and stuff like that, I knew this guy actually called us and he’s like, John Gellardi called us. The guy has over 500 restaurants, owns the real estate. He’s worth, I mean, he’s worth, I don’t know, $500, $600 million. And he liked what Chronic Tacos was doing. And we only had 10 stores at the time.

You know, he thought it was cool. He thought it was a good upcoming brand. And so he reached out to us and became a good friend. know, it was just, ⁓ you know, invited us to the office all the time. I would be there at eight o’clock at night at his huge corporate office, hundreds of employees, no one in there, just me and him. And we’ve got the marker board and he’s like, this is what you gotta do. This is where you gotta go. And I was like, my gosh, this is priceless. But…

Yeah, I just feel it’s kind of like word of mouth or if you or if you see a business that you really like, reach out to them, reach out to the owner or the founder or and just ask, hey, you know, do you offer any mentorship or is there any, you know, any anything you can, you know, any anything you could suggest or because I get somebody calls me. I would be like, I love to talk to you.

Anthony Codispoti (53:05)
Yeah.

⁓ okay. Think about outside of work. Think about not going to taco shops. What is your favorite thing to do outside of?

Randy (53:21)
⁓ my favorite thing to do, well, I love, I like to relax. ⁓ I like to sit by the pool. ⁓ I go to the beach a lot. ⁓ you know, camping, ⁓ love to travel, but you know, for me, it’s like, if I can get some time with the kids and relax at the house, go to the beach. ⁓ you know, the beach is a big part of my life and, ⁓

relaxing, putting the phone away for a couple hours. That’s fun. I’ve got kids and spending time with them really, really is my therapy and my go-to.

Anthony Codispoti (54:07)
Love it. I’ve just got one more question for you today, Randy. But before I ask it, I want to do three quick things. First of all, anybody wants to get in touch with Randy, go to their website, ChronicTacos.com. Super easy. It’s the classic spelling. ChronicTacos.com. It’ll be on the show notes, but you can get to it on your own. ChronicTacos.com. Also, if you’re enjoying the show, a quick review on your favorite podcast app goes a long way towards helping others discover our show. So thank you for taking a quick moment to do that right now.

And as a reminder, if you want to get more restaurant employees access to therapists, doctors, and prescription meds that, paradoxical as it seems, actually increases your company’s net profits, reach out to us at addbackbenefits.com. So last question for you, Randy, a year from now, what is one very specific thing that you hope to be celebrated?

Randy (54:56)
⁓

you know, want to, ⁓ a year from now celebrating, I want to break, you know, 40 stores. I like to get to 50, but I think, ⁓ you know, if we can get up to 40 stores, I will definitely be celebrating. ⁓ and just bringing chronic tacos to other states. That’s my goal. That’s my dream. And to keep this going as long, you know, forever.

This is a legacy that we’re building for all of our kids and I want this to be around for a long time.

I lost you for a second.

Anthony Codispoti (55:31)
Randy Weiner from

Chronic Tacos, I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate you being here.

Randy (55:40)
Thank you, Anthony. It was awesome. I’d love to see you again.

Anthony Codispoti (55:45)
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us. And if one thing stood out, try putting that into action today.