Cantina Laredo San Juan
The interior of the new Cantina Laredo in San Juan, Puerto Rico
By Ed Avis
There’s no shortage of Mexican restaurants in Puerto Rico, including outposts of some well-known Mexican-American concepts, such as Rosa Mexicano. Nevertheless, operators of Cantina Laredo are confident their brand of contemporary, polished Mexican will be a hit on the island.
“To join the exceptional collection of retailers and restaurants at The Mall of San Juan
Cantina Laredo in the Mall of San Juan
Cantina Laredo in the Mall of San Juan
is a great honor,” said John D. Harkey, Jr., CEO of Consolidated Restaurant Operations, Inc., which owns Cantina Laredo. “We continue to pursue locations where our modern Mexican restaurant will be a fit with the modern life of a city.”
The Puerto Rico location of Cantina Laredo is a franchise operated by Francisco Rivera and Edwin Torres, who operate WOW Restaurants in San Juan. WOW’s other concepts include Outback Steakhouse, Aqua Bar & Grill, and Texas de Brazil.
The Puerto Rican restaurant is the first Caribbean location of the concept, and it’s the only one planned at the moment, according to JoseLuis Magaña, president of Cantina Laredo. However, the company is expanding internationally in 2018 with a new location Qatar and one in Turkey. Those will join international locations in London and Abu Dhabi. The company has 37 locations in total.
Bill Watson, the company’s vice president of marketing, says the Middle Eastern locations present less of a challenge than one may imagine.
“The supply chain there is robust,” Watson says. “They are almost all port cities, where you can get your goods in readily.”
And while some of the Middle Eastern locations do not serve alcohol, per local customs, the cuisine is well received.
“The menu of Cantina Laredo is 95 percent core, and the other 5 percent is normally localized to the market,” Magaña says. “We provide diners with polished Mexican cuisine, with only quality ingredients. It is a scratch kitchen – everything is prepared fresh.”
Watson adds that while there are other Mexican-cuisine restaurants in the Middle East, they offer a different take on the cuisine.
“In the Middle East it’s very rare to find anything approaching the polished, casual Mexican dining options Cantina Laredo offers,” Watson says. “Our franchise partners there want to bring upscale Mexican to their market. They see the opportunity, and they recognize that the first to market usually wins.”
Do the local residents know what to expect when they walk into a Cantina Laredo?
“What we’ve discovered in the past decade is that consumers all over the world are savvy to all types of food, thanks to the Food Channel and Food Network, Diners and Drive-ins, you name it,” Watson says. “I’ve sat in focus groups in the UAE talking about the spiciness of different types of peppers. There is a real ease of conversation about a cuisine that is not readily available in that part of the world.”