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By Ed Avis
Like most restaurant owners, Blanca Aldaco was fully absorbed in running her business as it grew in its first three decades. She had founded Aldaco’s Mexican Cuisine in San Antonio, Texas, in 1989, and over the years collected dozens of awards from news media and community organizations, from Best Margarita to Best Dessert to Best Overall Food.
She also was a member of the Texas Restaurant Association (TRA). But she was not really involved -- running the restaurant took priority. Her business – and her involvement with TRA – suddenly changed when COVID hit in 2020.
“Not only were we going through the unknowns of COVID, but we also were going from serving maybe 800 people on a weeknight and 1500 on a weekend day to suddenly having to do entirely curbside to-go orders,” remembers Aldaco. “We had to adjust to that, and I think the biggest deal was getting a nightly update from the TRA. The information they were sending us was instrumental in helping us navigate the situation. It was very easy for us to fall in love with the TRA as they were basically the wind beneath our sails.”
Not only was the TRA providing information, the organization also was working with the state legislature to make changes to laws that would help restaurants survive the pandemic. An early victory was changes to laws that allowed alcohol to be sold to-go.
That change was essential for Aldaco’s. A typical curbside order brought in about $50 in revenue; once they could add margaritas to the order, the value jumped to $100 or more.
“That additional stream of income helped us tremendously,” Aldaco remembers.
Raising Her Hand
Aldaco had met Emily Knight, the president of TRA, months prior to COVID, when Knight visited San Antonio as part a tour to familiarize herself with members. So when Aldaco realized the impact the association was having on her business during COVID, she reached out Knight to see how she could help.
“I was kind of like raising my hand in the back of the room, saying ‘I’m here, what can I do?’” she says.
Her first step was to get involved in the San Antonio Chapter of TRA, and eventually she became a member of that chapter’s board of directors. She climbed the ranks from treasurer to vice chair to chair, and is currently serving her second year in that position.
In 2022 she also joined the state-level TRA board.
Along the way TRA asked Aldaco to testify before the Texas legislature on issues that were affecting the industry. She discussed the burden of unpredictable property taxes and the unfairness of duplicate liquor license requirements from state and local authorities.
“It is really important for us to share this with officials,” she says. “It’s OK when they listen to the lobbyists and the attorneys, but when they hear real stories from real restaurant owners, the senators are very, very engaged and they ask questions because they don’t know what we’re going through.”
“Brilliant” Staff
Aldaco is now the vice chair of the advocacy committee at the state level. That means she’s directly involved in the full range of issues the association faces, but she also still runs her restaurant. She counts on TRA’s staff for their deep knowledge and day-to-day management of the advocacy issues, specifically Kelsey Erickson Streufert, chief public affairs officer, and Madison Gessner, executive director of the Greater Austin Office.
“These two brilliant women know the bills inside and out and they’re on the attack, you know, one way or another,” Aldaco says. “They’re the ones who summarize the 20-page bill to half a page and inform us. And then we get our electronic requests to lawmakers, asking them to support or deny this bill.”
Aldaco credits Erickson Streufert and Gessner, but she herself also has been recognized: She won the 2025 TRA Skeeter Miller Excellence in Advocacy Award, which is designed “to celebrate a member who demonstrates an extraordinary commitment to our advocacy efforts on behalf of Texas’ entire foodservice industry,” according to the TRA web site.
Aldaco’s advocacy work is nowhere near done. Current issues that she and the TRA are working on include reducing credit card processing fees, maintaining the tip credit, and securing a childcare tax credit, all of which could help restaurants expand their thin operating margins.
“The TRA’s advocacy has been so important for every restaurant or operator because the decisions that are made every day at different government levels can help or hurt us,” she says. “As we continue to get together, we make a difference.”
Click here to read a 2023 el Restaurante article about Aldaco's Mexican Cuisine by Natalia Otero
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