By Ed Avis
Soon after Chris Cheeseman arrived in San Francisco in 2008, he discovered Tortilla Heights, a Mexican restaurant four blocks from his apartment. He was already amazed by the West Coast taqueria culture, something he had not experienced in his home state of Connecticut.
“When you grow up in Connecticut and you’re Italian, like I am, you eat a lot of Italian food, you work in pizzerias,” Cheeseman says. “Mexican food is California is essentially the Italian food of the West Coast. It’s so ubiquitous. It’s really the cuisine of California.”
Cheeseman had come to San Francisco after graduating from Florida State University’s Dedman School of Hospitality and was working at the Bohemian Club, a swank members-only club in the Nob Hill neighborhood. He started visiting Tortilla Heights so often that he befriended the managing partner, Brian McLaughlin. McLaughlin saw something promising in Cheeseman and hired him as the general manager.
Expanding the Concept
Tortilla Heights was not a taqueria; it was a full-service Mexican restaurant open only at night. But the other owner, Paul Owens, wanted to start lunch service – and the idea of opening a taqueria-like concept for lunch took root.
“I loved the idea of that,” Cheeseman says. “That mixed concept at the time really wasn’t around – that during lunch, you do the taqueria, and at night, you’re full service.”
The concept worked. They focused on quality – Wagyu beef for the beef tacos, for example. Lunchtime diners liked the good food they could get quickly, when they didn’t have time for an upscale experience. At night a different crowd showed up, those who expected sit down service and nice margaritas.
“That was my first opportunity, essentially, to create a restaurant in itself,” Cheeseman remembers. “I was 25 years old, and it was extremely exciting to build this program.”
Given the success of that experiment, what happened next is no surprise: Owens, McLaughlin, and two other restaurateurs – Nick Fasanella, the former owner of Nick’s Crispy Tacos who had developed the menu for Tortilla Heights, and Doug Marschke, owner of the taco restaurant Underdogs – launched Tacko, a restaurant dedicated to top-quality taqueria cuisine. They asked Cheeseman to manage the new restaurant, and eventually he became the managing partner.
And what is now known as the Taco Syndicate was born.
A Web of Relationships
The Taco Syndicate’s roots started before Cheeseman’s arrival in San Francisco. Nick’s Crispy Tacos was already established, and Underdogs was being converted from a bar to a taco restaurant that year.
“For me, this all started when I took over Underdogs Sports Bar & Grill as a tech guy with very little restaurant experience,” Marschke says. “I teamed up with Nick (Fassanella), rebranded to Taco Shop at Underdogs, and away we went. Nick was at Tortilla Heights for a while, and that is how I met Chris, and the web got started.”
Owens, McLaughlin, Fasanella, Marschke and Cheeseman have opened at least a dozen Mexican restaurants in the San Francisco area in the years since. In some cases, they worked as a group, other times just two of them. There has never been a formal corporate organization behind them. It is just a loose connection of business relationships and a shared fascination with Mexican food.
“It's not a collective that we set out to just create a restaurant group and then open a series of restaurants,” Cheeseman says. “It's just series of friendships and interactions over the years of spawned opportunities. Opportunities open up all the time. Offerings of capital happen a lot. So, when these situations occur and if it's the right time and the right moment, the right space, depending on who's involved, we move forward and open them.”
Today, Bay area restaurants owned by one or more of the men include Tacko, three locations of Underdogs, The Cantina at San Benito House, and North Beach Cantina, which opened in 2022. Marschke and Cheeseman are opening one more, Todos, this year.
“It’s been this spider web of restaurants that all sourced from Tortilla Heights and are operated by the same five of us who, throughout the years, have had restaurants come and go,” Cheeseman says. “And every restaurant that is opened is different. The menu will change a little bit, the concept. But it's still based around that same core of Mexican food, the classics that everyone absolutely loves and continues to come back for.”
Cheeseman stresses that while the group is not formally connected, their joint efforts and knowledge sharing are key to their success.
“Really, it’s the collective experience that has moved this concept forward,” he says. “It takes a lot of wisdom to avoid the pitfalls and invest your time in the things that are going to succeed and figure out how to continue to grow revenue, keep your costs down, and expand on the growing ideas that we have without taking away from the core of the brand.”
Success, Repeated
A look at the restaurants’ menus confirms Cheeseman’s theory: customers who enjoy one of the restaurants will enjoy the others. Fish tacos and carne asada play starring roles on all the menus. Chicken Chile Verde makes an appearance on several menus, as does Elote Con Queso. The “Nick’s Way” taco – a creation popularized by Nick’s Crispy Tacos that features a crispy corn tortilla wrapped in a soft corn tortilla – is on the menus at Underdogs Too, Underdogs Tres and Tacko.
According to Cheeseman, the cuisine is the foundation of the fun: “There's something about Mexican food that is very joyous, almost more than Italian food, which is a very joyous cuisine to eat. When people come to the restaurant, they're in a good mood. They want to drink a margarita. They want to have fun. It's hard to say that about much other cuisine, but there is just a joyous experience about going to a Mexican restaurant.”
The group does some purchasing together to save money. For example, because the combined restaurants use so much carne asada, they were able to negotiate good prices for the beef that have held up despite the current inflation crisis, Cheeseman says.
The vibe varies a bit from restaurant to restaurant – North Beach Cantina plays up the beach scene; Tacko has a more modern, clean look; and The Cantina at San Benito House features a lot of wood and Old West décor. But they all emphasize casual, communal fun.
Sadly, the group has weathered serious setbacks, too. In December 2020, Underdogs Too was destroyed by fire and was closed for about a year, and The Cantina at San Benito House was closed for six months after a fire in April 2021 raced through the hotel above the restaurant.
Still Friends
The shared experiences of the Taco Syndicate men have made them close. But, as often happens as people age, other priorities have emerged.
“I think, unfortunately, we've all gone in a lot of separate ways,” Cheeseman says. “Our lives have evolved. We've had children, we've moved. A couple of us left the West Coast and now live on the East Coast. We are all still friends at the core. Years can pass and we'll get together.”
Marschke agrees, but notes that being part of the “syndicate” still helps.
“We might not see each other as much, but we are always there to lend a helping hand, regardless if one of us has ownership in a business,” he says. “For example, when Underdogs Cantina opened, I was out with COVID, and Chris made sure he was there all day to make sure opening day went smoothly. It is also great to ask each other for advice, or to bounce ideas off each other. It is so important in this industry to make sure you are not ‘going at it alone.’”
The collective helps even when members move. About a year ago, Cheeseman helped McLaughlin launch a restaurant called Localés in Hingham, Massachusetts. Its menu emulates those of the San Fran restaurants, right down to the crispy-within-a-soft-corn-tortilla option.
It was during Cheeseman’s visit to help McLaughlin in Massachusetts that the group’s nickname emerged.
“He basically said, ‘I'm happy to rejoin the Taco Syndicate,’” McLaughlin recalls. “I thought it was a great name for this collective group of people and businesses because the one thing we are not is a corporate entity. It's like a brotherhood almost because opening and operating restaurants can be like a battlefield. People have to step up and perform at certain times. And you don't forget that. You definitely have almost like a familial relationship where time could pass and then get together. And it's great.”