The spread of Roberto's Taco Shop restaurants and its many 'Berto's' variations across the Southwest and abroad started with one Mexican immigrant family's unique business model.
How a family-run Mexican restaurant became a popular chain — and a Southwest phenomenon
One of the nation’s first Mexican fast-food chains, the family-run Roberto’s Taco Shop introduced an innovative blueprint that would spur copycats and imitators in the Southwest and even abroad. In 1964, the family purchased two adjacent homes in San Ysidro, near the U.S.-Mexico border. One home was where they lived, the other was converted into a tortilla factory to make corn and flour tortillas to deliver to other restaurants. They also sold bean and cheese burritos, chile verde burritos and chile colorado burritos at that time.
"It was the first Roberto's … from there forward, all the restaurants we opened were Roberto's Taco Shop," said Reynaldo, who grew up working in the family business as a cook. "My dad told them to change the name. And that’s where Alberto’s came," Reynaldo said referring to the first variant."The saying goes that on their building, they had Roberto’s just with block lettering and they just bought a can of paint; changed the R to an A and then half of the O — they just painted half of it to make it an L."
The businesses have allowed her to own two homes, a 2017 Range Rover and afford vacations in Cancún, Los Cabos, Spain and Italy."It's normal ... People that worked with me, learned and they went on to other states," she said, referring to former longtime employees who moved elsewhere to open their own shops.
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