CENTERVILLE — On a warm Monday night, the predinner procession at The Taco Maker is steady. A couple of families dine together, sharing laughs along with their meal. A trio of co-workers munches quickly on Mexican platters bigger than their heads before returning to their jobs. Several parents and grandparents order to-go items, often with a youngster in tow hoping to finish off an ice cream before it melts.
But few likely realize that the restaurant chain they frequent is based in a nearby city. The closest guess springs from a young man suspecting a leading question. "Here?" he asks.
Close.
The worldwide corporate headquarters of the 148-restaurant chain — which has nearly 100 stores in Puerto Rico — is in Ogden.
"The biggest question a lot of people have is, how did a Mexican food place get in Ogden, Utah?" said Steven M. Krolak, vice president of franchise development.
But the answer is simple.
"Well, this is our hometown," Krolak said. "This is where we live."
After Ogden native Gil L. Craig's establishment of The Taco Maker Inc. in 1978, the company has grown from a handful of restaurants to an operation with 50 outlets across the country, those dozens in Puerto Rico and a few restaurants in India and the Philippines.
OK, by now you've probably got that distinctive "Ta-co Ma-ker!" jingle dancing in your head, but Mexican fast food is just one of three "concepts" for The Taco Maker Inc. The others are Jake's Over the Top, serving American fare often chased with an "Avalanche" milkshake topping out several inches above the rim of the cup — hence the name — and Mayan Jamma Juice, offering a variety of frozen fruit drinks.
Abundant flavor options aside, the corporation has used a mix of ingredients — food freshness, intensive franchisee training, co-branding and outlet alternatives — to position itself in the fast-food world and leave The Taco Maker Inc. primed to double its number of outlets over the next five years.
A better way
The Taco Maker's beginnings came from its founder's desire to make a better taco. Craig started his Mexican fast-food career in 1968 in California, working with his brother. "They learned how to do things there, but they came back and said, 'We can do this better. We need to do it right,'" Krolak said.
Craig, now the company's chairman, established The Taco Maker Inc., and the first restaurant opened in Puerto Rico in 1978, setting the stage for it to become the largest Mexican fast-food chain on the island. A year later, a shop opened in Wayne, N.J., and it remains the oldest operating outlet in the United States. By 1987, there were 100 outlets.
Jake's Over the Top opened its first outlet in 1993 in Ogden, and a big move for the company came four years later when a store in Kaysville opened with both Taco Maker and Jake's items on the menu. Many restaurants now feature all three Taco Maker Inc. concepts.
"We found that by putting them together, you appeal to a much broader market," Krolak said.
His own family is representative of that market. Krolak almost always goes for the Burrito Grande Platter, while his wife mostly opts for a taco salad. Their daughter? A Jake's burger. His wife finishes with a Mayan Jamma Juice, with Krolak and their daughter downing some ice cream.
"And it's all in one spot," Krolak said. "When we started the concept of putting the two together right here in Kaysville, it was at a time when there wasn't anybody else doing co-branding with their own brands. They usually were still separate companies focusing on what they did."
Iuni and Mapuana Tuli of Bountiful enjoy that menu variety. At the Centerville restaurant, they recently sampled Mexican offerings while two of their children preferred Jake's burgers, served "old school," according to Iuni Tuli, meaning inside cardboard vintage cars.
"We come here all the time," he said. "I prefer the food here more than McDonald's or Burger King because it comes out nice and hot. The order comes out really quick. We're not out here waiting for 10, 15 minutes for it. And the food is great."
Although one daughter often orders a bean burrito, the burgers-for-kids, Mexican-for-adults scenario is typical for their family. And it's the same for others, according to Kevin Moss, owner/operator of the Centerville restaurant.
"We see it all the time, especially in the summertime. In the winter, you'll see some burgers, but the majority is Taco Maker. But when summertime comes around, kids and tacos and Jake's Over the Top ice cream works real well," he said.
"With the exception of Japanese or Chinese, I think we have a good menu, especially if you have four or five family members. One wants the burgers, one wants the platter, one wants ice cream. It makes it real sweet for us as business owners to make that available."
The first of soon-to-be five Taco Makers in India opened this year in New Delhi. "Obviously, we've had to make a few adjustments to the menu, so we replaced beef with more chicken and lamb offerings, and we've tied it in with the ice cream, and it's packed," Krolak said. "The place is packed all the time."
A fresh approach
What's real sweet for customers like the Tulis is, simply, the food. Taco Maker officials say what sets their food apart from the competition is freshness. That's why an outlet like the one in Centerville can compete despite a half-dozen other fast-food options within a stone's throw.
"The food we make is such a good quality," Moss said. "It's the freshness. Not too many people out there can match that, and I think that's what brings a lot of our regulars back. . . . That's what the customers tell us: 'It's fresh. It's hot.' "
The Mexican fast-food industry is exploding, but Krolak said that wasn't the case in 1978.
"We saw a definite need for things to be done differently and how we could do them differently," he said.
Taco Maker works with U.S. Foodservice to get just the right specifications met for its food, from ingredients and sauces to the proper size of tortillas.
"We do have better food. We have stores that are right next door to Del Taco — right next door! — and we do a great business there. People have to drive past Del Taco to get to our driveway, and they do. By putting our brands together, we now appeal to a broader marketplace. At the time (the company was founded), there was just a need for good Mexican food, so we got into the business and started moving along," Krolak said.
Taco Maker U.
But Krolak said that "by far" the biggest contributor to The Taco Maker's success is training. While many people know about McDonald's "Hamburger U.," The Taco Maker University was established in 1978 to ensure that owners and operators sing from the same procedural songbook.
"We offer more training than any other franchise food outlet," Krolak said.
The bulk of the training typically occurs within the last month before an outlet opens. It is preceded by a correspondence course that can take several days to complete. The Taco Maker University training follows — 19 days spent in Ogden, featuring both in-restaurant experience and classroom instruction, plus nightly homework.
"When they're finished, they know everything they need to know to start an outlet," Krolak said.
What's more, the company sends out a couple of operations people for two weeks on-site through a restaurant opening to help the franchisee teach employees.
"The most important thing is to teach them how to teach others to be successful, and I think that's one of our strengths, that we spend so much of our time on training," Krolak said.
Another ingredient in the corporation's success is the flexibility franchisees have about how their outlet will look. Several restaurants are of the free-standing variety, but many Taco Maker/Jake's are in food courts, strip malls, convenience stores, truck stops, airports and office buildings.
The latest incarnation of Taco Maker is the Mexican Grill. The first such restaurant opened in late 2004 in Las Vegas. It allows customers to move quickly through lines as their favorite food elements are added (think Subway).
"We've asked people about what they consider a good amount of time (for food preparation)," Krolak said. "Some people believe 3 1/2 minutes is a good period of time. We shoot for 90 seconds, because people don't have a lot of time."
Growth on the horizon
As for its financial history, well, Taco Maker, like many privately held companies, keeps that information close to the vest. "I can tell you that our numbers are up," Krolak said. "They're up consistently every year."
And the corporation, which owns only five restaurants in the chain, is looking to increase the number of outlets. It has 24 restaurants in the Utah/Southern Idaho region and wants to "fill in some gaps" there and perhaps get more people owning multiple outlets. Ditto for the country as a whole.
"You buy one outlet, you bought a job. And you're totally dependent upon yourself, so if you believe in yourself and work, you'll have a successful job," he said. "But you buy two or three or four, you have a business.
"I get calls every day," he said of interest from potential franchisees. "I get e-mail leads from new construction, outlets, new malls, even local malls, saying, 'We know your concept and it would go well here.' Some are looking to fill space, but others are saying they have everything else but need good Mexican food."
A free-standing Taco Maker/Jake's restaurant in Carol Stream, Ill., opened in March, and Krolak said he is working with 12 other people who want to open stores in that area. And Puerto Rico, where the 93rd store recently opened, will have more than 100 by the end of this year.
"We have more than 140 outlets now, and we're looking to double our number within the next five years," he said of the company's overall total. "We have 30 new projects on our boards now.
"There are so many more people in Puerto Rico that are looking to get involved that they are looking for spaces in Florida — in Miami and Orlando and Tampa — where there's a large Puerto Rican population."
But Krolak said the company needs to "grow smart." It doesn't want stores "right on top of each other" and wants to ensure that franchisees are right for the job.
"We're dealing with people throughout the world right now, but we're not the type of company to just take the money and run," Krolak said.
"We want to be sure we have the right person, that they have food service experience, and not just the financial capability of building a restaurant. Anybody can do that, but that's our name on the board."
E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com