11/01/2022
Fiesta Taco (Chico) Closing-up shop…
As many of our regular customers know. Fiesta Taco in Chico will be closing-up shop this month. Our last day of “normal” operating hours will be Saturday November 12th. Doing this is like taking a spear to the chest… It hurts. But this year has become impossible to keep to our original intention from when we took over Fiesta Taco.
I was a starving student once and know that coming across good inexpensive food is hard to come by, so that was our goal. To provide inexpensive quality good tasting food to the students and locals. We were able to have a “special of the day” Monday through Friday. Shoot! At one point you could get yourself 2 tortas for only $6. But that was then. Back when there was only 3 food trucks and 2 Mexican brick and mortars on Nord. Now there seems to be one a block away from each other, and in one part there is actually one on each corner!
Competition isn’t the reason we are closing up though…Even though it is one of the factors that come into play. It’s mainly what every other local business is going through. Finding Employees has become a difficult task. We didn’t cheap out on the pay either. When minimum wage was $13.50hr for a small business we offered $17hr for cooks. This year we even offered one $20hr!
The absurd cost of goods! When we started running this business back in 2015 a pound of chuck roll beef was only $1.50. Now you are lucky when you find it on sale at $3.75 a pound. This isn’t even diced!
It seems like I’m being a negative Nancy (no offense to any Nancy’s we’re sure you are all cool). Don’t get me wrong. The food business is a pretty good business if you have the help… As in it’s not just 2 people trying to run the business.
But as for us. We’re tired of constantly struggling to find help. Tired of letting down our customers because we must close early when we run out of food and can’t go prep more. Tired of trying to play catch up on all the expenses that have accumulated since the Camp Fire. Tired of one of us having to work 2 extra jobs while the other tries to run it by herself, JUST to make ends meet.
With that we say goodbye. And we truly appreciate all the people we were able to bring joy with our food and that kept coming back.
-Juan & Blanca
Fiesta Taco
