Chavela Crawl
Chavela Crawl
When “West Fest” happens on the street in front of Tecalitlan Mexican Restaurant in Chicago, Karla Garcia and her staff go all out.
“We transform our parking lot into a restaurant and sell food and liquor for three days,” Garcia says. “It’s absolutely worth it. Everyone has a good time and everyone makes money.”
On the other end of the spectrum, Pepe Stepensky feels that participating in Tacotopia, an annual event in San Diego organized by the San Diego Reader, did not pay off.
“I don’t think it was worthwhile,” says Stepensky, who owns three Mexican restaurants in San Diego. “They charge people to go in and we need to give away food for 500 people. We did it for the exposure, but we didn’t generate any business that we can measure. We did it twice and never did it again.”
What makes the difference? Many factors are at play, but it seems that smaller events, often organized in the neighborhood, seem to offer better profit opportunities for the participating restaurants than large, formally organized events.
Chamber Organized
Garcia says the West Town Chamber of Commerce organizes West Fest. The chamber closes off the street for a couple of blocks and books entertainment on stages at either end. Garcia does not pay to participate; the chamber raises money for itself by selling beer from a booth on the street.
To take full advantage of the crowds at the event, Garcia downsizes her menu to tacos, burritos and other easy-to-carry dishes and switches to disposable servingware.
“We learned the hard way trying to get sizzling hot plates out there,” she says. “And on that weekend, it’s all plastic for the cups. The first couple of years we had to buy all new margarita glasses afterward because our glasses were broken or stolen or lost.”
Business is so robust that Garcia has to staff up.
“It really is all hands on deck. We go from 22 to 55 staff for those three days,” she says. “We’re lucky we’ve kept good relations with ex-employees, because they come and help us for the weekend.”
Taco Showdown
In contrast to Garcia’s experience, Tim Castañeda says a large taco event in Detroit last year appeared to be more trouble than it was worth. Castañeda, who owns Zumba Mexican Grille Catering, says that the organizers seemed to have created the event to line their pockets, not help the participating restaurants find new customers.
“It was way oversold,” Castañeda says, explaining that attendees were sold cheap tickets that entitled them to free drinks and food. “The line was a mile long and some people didn’t get in. The organizers had to give refunds.”
San Jose Taco Crawl
Jorge Sanchez has first-hand knowledge on both sides of the event experience – he is both organizer and participant in San Jose Taco Crawl and Chavela Crawl.
“We are the creator and producer of the events,” says Sanchez, who owns Chacho’s Restaurant in San Jose. The Chavela Crawl, which honors that beer-and-tomato-juice cocktail, has been going for four years, and the Taco Crawl for two.
Sanchez’s events showcase the restaurants in downtown San Jose that have tacos or chavelas on the menu. Attendees get a wrist band and move from location to location, sampling the goods at special prices at each participating restaurant. The most recent taco crawl featured eight restaurants and the chavela crawl included six.
“The taco crawl brings awareness to the taco as a whole,” Sanchez says. “It allows customers to compare restaurants and prices and ambience. It’s a gimmick for those restaurants to give new customers a chance to try their tacos.”
Sanchez says about 200 people attend the events. Mariachi bands liven up the atmosphere and many customers wear costumes. The events are definitely worthwhile for the participating restaurants, he says.
“In this industry you’re always trying to find the next gimmick to set you ahead of the crowd,” he says. “It’s not just about me; it’s about our neighborhood, our downtown.”
Ed Avis is the publisher of el Restaurante.
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