In Sunset Park, Brooklyn, Tacombi Community Kitchen is distributing meals.
Tacombi, a chain of nine Mexican taco eateries and growing, located throughout New York City, is on a mission to help its community at a time of trouble and pandemic.
In April 2020, Tacombi officially launched Tacombi Community Kitchen, through its non-profit Tacombi Foundation. Its goal is to “provide immediate food relief through wholesome meals to individuals and families hit by the Covid-19 health crisis and financial crisis,” says Susana Camarena, its director of Impact.
Tacombi is demonstrating that doing good deeds can also boost one’s brand.
When Dario Wolos started Tacombi as a food truck in Mexico about a dozen years ago, he also wanted to do something for the under-privileged. When he opened his first retail store in Nolita in New York in 2009, he again was committed to giving back.
Helping others has been part of Tacombi’s DNA. Its Nolita location welcomed neighbors with free meals when Hurricane Sandy struck in 2012. And it held fundraising events in 2017 when a 7.1 earthquake shattered Mexico.
“We felt it was our duty. We had the equipment and the knowledge to feed people in need,” Camarena notes.
At the outset of the pandemic, it distributed about 1,600 weekly meals, but that number has stepped up to 4,000 meals a week. It serves meals in neighborhoods where it’s mostly Hispanic staff lives, in the Bronx, parts of Brooklyn and Jackson Heights, Queens.
Most of its restaurant locations are situated in more affluent neighborhood like the West Village, Chelsea and Upper West Side.
Since it launched Tacombi Community Foundation, it has raised $600,000. Camarena said it started the foundation before the pandemic hit and raised its initial $50,000 from a crowdsourcing campaign. Then it stepped up applications for grants from larger organizations.
It also donates 100% of its proceeds from serving its taco plato dish, which consists of a chicken or other protein taco plus rice and beans.
“It’s the same meal we serve to 4,000 people a week. We serve them that because it’s about dignity. We’re not giving away leftovers,” Camarena notes.
Like all restaurants in New York City, it was forced to shutter its doors in March 2020. Its corporate team decided that as a hospitality company, it wanted to become part of the solution and help neighbors facing food insecurity. What better way than provide satisfying Mexican meals?
The latest Tacombi opened on the Upper East Side in December 2020.
To distribute the food, it partners with different non-profit organizations: in Brooklyn with the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, in Harlem with Good Eats Organization, and in the Bronx site with Mercy Center.
Running the non-profit Tacombi Foundation also enabled it to keep more of its staff employed and also sends a positive message to its customers. “We’re doing something that goes beyond making a profit,” Camarena explains.
Camarena makes the case that it’s also good for business. More clients will choose it, over its competitors because they know they can “eat a delicious meal, and at the same time, they’re doing good.”
The pandemic altered its business model. Prior to it, delivery and take-out generated about 20% to 25% of its business, which increased to 100% at its height before it built its outdoor dining cabinas.
Recently it settled into about 66% of its business deriving from take-out and delivery and the remainder from outdoor dining, due to indoor restrictions.
Tacombi is also in a growth spurt. It’s opening a new location in Long Island City in May, and then two new stores in the Washington, D.C. area late this summer and another two planned for Miami in fall and winter.
All of its eateries are company-owned; none is franchised.
May 5 is Cinco De Mayo, which produces the most revenue at Tacombi during the year. It’s donating 100% of its proceeds that day to its foundation.
But when the pandemic eventually fades, Camarena says it will continue its Tacombi Foundation and serving meals to those who need it. “It will be growing at the same pace as our restaurants. We’re committed to this program and doing something to help food insecurity,” she says.
