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Putting the mmmm in Mexican food at Quesada
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Photos courtesy Moment.us Photography
By Steff Charbonneau
Mornings are my favourite time of day. Cranking up the music at my Quesada Burritos & Tacos franchise, I work on creating a little ambiance for my customers.
You know the aroma that greets you when you walk into someone’s kitchen? At my Quesada, that’s the smell of tomatoes roasting in the oven as they bubble and caramelize, intensifying the flavours of the salsa they’ll soon become. Some people might think making salsa every day is a lot of work, but that’s just the Quesada way. It’s also one of the things I like best about the brand. I’m not only a franchisee in Cornwall, Ont., I’m also the franchise’s area developer for eastern and northern Ontario. And when I’m not turning up the heat in the kitchen, I’m putting out fires with Ottawa Fire Services.
Getting fired up
I spent 10 years trying to get out of Cornwall, where I was born and raised, but no luck so far. Although I’ve travelled around the world, I eventually realized I’m happier in this corner of Ontario than anywhere else. Most of that is due to the fact everyone who matters in my life lives here. It’s also a small enough town that if you dig deep enough, you’ll find a connection between people you know. Located about an hour’s drive from both Ottawa and Montreal, Cornwall is a bilingual community. In fact, French is my first language. About half the city is perfectly bilingual and very seldom do you find someone who only speaks French or English.
I grew up loving sports and played most of them, along with my brother Al, who is 13 months older than me. We were best friends growing up and our lives as kids revolved around sports. If we weren’t on a basketball court or at a baseball diamond, we were getting ready to go to one to play or practice. My dad Bernie probably had a lot to do with that. He was a physical education teacher at the high school down the road from us. My mom Ginette was a nurse. Between the two of them, it was pretty much certain my future would include getting a university degree.
Every morning I roast the tomatoes that will become the basis for the salsa we serve. I know my customers appreciate the homemade flavour of our food. And in case you were wondering, I also make the guacamole from scratch.
I was a good student, although I didn’t try very hard. I liked going to school and never had a bad day. Of course, I loved the sports aspect and signed up for every high school team I could.
After finishing high school in 1990, I was all set to study physiotherapy at Queen’s University in nearby Kingston, Ont. To my parents’ dismay, however, I decided to buy a plane ticket to Europe instead. My thinking was that I didn’t want life to pass me by while I was at school. Besides my family, there’s one thing in my life I absolutely love and that’s travelling—it’s my passion. But after four months of seeing the sights in Europe, I got homesick and returned to Cornwall. Like I said, my parents were pretty adamant I get a degree, so the following September I was at the University of Ottawa. Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to study and shifted back and forth between majors. By the third year, I decided to look seriously at firefighting. I always kind of knew I wanted to be a firefighter. I was drawn to it from an early age and found it more intriguing as time went on and school became less and less appealing to me. Dropping out in third year, I headed west to fight bush fires in Golden, B.C. I got on with a very small crew, but that gig didn’t last long, as there just wasn’t enough work that time of year.
Returning to Cornwall, I became a volunteer firefighter. For the next five years, I took courses and padded my resumé with experience, while I applied to the Cornwall Fire Department. Most people don’t know this, but it can take up to two years to go through the application process. In the meantime, you work out, study and do the physical, hoping to get an interview. If they invite you to interview, you hope to have a good one and get offered a job. And if you don’t, you apply again. I tried a few times to get hired by Cornwall’s fire service and got to the interview stage once. I didn’t get the job, so I applied to Ottawa’s fire department in 2003 and was hired right away. I’m now in my 13th year as a firefighter. I’ve had a great career so far, although I admit there are highs and lows. Anyone in emergency services will tell you it’s not like it is on television, although all days are rewarding in the end.
Why firefighting? Well, I’m probably stronger than the average person, given my size. Like most firefighters, I’m a Type A personality; the bigger the challenge, the more I want to get in there. In a lot of ways, this is my mindset in business, too. Running full out toward a challenge is the spirit of the entrepreneur. If you go into business thinking it will be all roses, you’ll soon discover there are challenging days. The thing to remember, though, is there’s satisfaction in overcoming them.
Cue Quesada
In 2004, I married my girlfriend Steph—our friends refer to us as Stef2—and we got to work starting a family. We welcomed our daughter Isabella in 2008 and our son Isaac in 2010. Steph’s a kindergarten teacher and as time wore on, she felt she wanted to stay home and care for our family. It didn’t make sense to either of us that we pay someone to raise our kids, while she was being paid to raise someone else’s. We realized our children would benefit greatly from being with her so much.
When I’m not running my restaurant or interviewing potential franchisees in my role as Quesada’s area developer for eastern and northern Ontario, I’m a firefighter with Ottawa Fire Services.
Photo courtesy Steff Charbonneau
With a house, two cars and a family to raise, Steph and I needed to make some decisions about how we were going to make this work financially. The answer seemed pretty straightforward. I’m at the fire hall seven days out of the month, which leaves me a lot of time to do something else. So we decided to look at getting into a business venture of some kind.
I’ve been in and out of restaurants since 16 years of age and have worked as a server, bartender and cook. I even managed a restaurant at one point and served as assistant food and beverage director for a company in Newfoundland. Given my previous experience, getting into a restaurant-type franchise seemed the obvious choice. With a young family to look after though, a quick-service restaurant (QSR) felt like a better match for us.
Looking around Cornwall, I realized there was a need for a Mexican QSR.
I researched them all and met with several franchisors. Each had their merits, but Quesada in particular struck me as having a very good grasp of how to run a business. I was pretty impressed with Tom O’Neill, Quesada’s president, when I met with him in September 2012. He did a great job of describing the brand’s philosophy when it comes to the importance of healthy and fresh-tasting ingredients, which is very important to me. I’m a big food guy. In fact, they call me ‘Stef the chef’ at the fire hall. I host dinner parties at my house every other week and prepare all the food. It’s what I like to do. Some people eat to live, I live to eat. I once booked a trip to Lima, Peru, because I got a reservation at Central, one of the top restaurants in the world. So when I took a bite of Quesada’s spicy chicken burrito, I knew it was the right choice for me. The flavours were incredible and had a homemade quality to them—you could taste fresh ingredients through and through.
It seems to have been the right choice for Canadians, too. Since opening a single location in 2004 in Toronto, Quesada has grown to more than 70 restaurants, thanks to its founder and CEO, Steve Gill.
A software developer from Scarborough, Ont., Gill got his fill of burritos while working in Denver, Colo., which happens to have more than 650 Mexican restaurants, if you can believe that. Returning to Toronto, he set out to create the best-tasting burrito he could. Using fresh ingredients and making everything from scratch, including the paste that flavours the meat, Gill came up with the idea for gourmet burritos for health-conscious eaters.
By January 2013, we were open for business. Things moved pretty quickly once I signed the franchise agreement, since we already had a space in mind and it was available. The support I got through the construction phase was also very reassuring. Even Steve came for a visit to make sure everything was going well.
I’m a big believer in the Quesada brand, so when the franchisor’s team asked me to become an area developer, I took them up on the offer.
The store was a success from the start. In fact, we were surprised by the response we got. We wanted a soft opening, but I’m happy to say that’s not what we got. The lineup out the door was a real eye opener and this was the norm for the first six months. Although the food did its part to keep customers coming back for more, the store’s location was also a factor; we are on Brookdale Avenue in the main commercial business area of town, about two kilometres off Highway 401 and one kilometre from the foot of the bridge that goes to the U.S.
Serving up excitement
Several months after opening my restaurant, Quesada approached me to become its area developer for eastern and northern Ontario. With a manager in place overseeing the store, things had eased up a bit for me and I was starting to think about other options. The franchisor’s offer piqued my interest—
I found it really easy to talk about Quesada and knew I could help grow the brand. Within a year, I had opened a location in Brockville, Ont., followed by two stores in Kingston and one in Petawawa. I have locations opening in North Bay and Sudbury, along with three others in Ottawa, one of them at Lansdowne Park, a historic sport, exhibition and entertainment facility.
I’m pretty passionate about Quesada as a brand, which helps when meeting with potential franchisees. I love the food
I serve and feel very happy when people eat at my restaurant. I also know exactly how every ingredient in the food came to be. I remember one customer who came to the restaurant shortly after we opened. Before ordering, she asked what was in the salsa, as she has certain allergies. When she listed the foods she’s allergic to, I told her she would be fine. Looking at me in disbelief, she asked how I could be so certain and shouldn’t I check the label? I said no because I had made the salsa that morning. It feels good to sell that kind of food, rather than cut open a bag or open a can. It’s also a growing trend these days. I find a number of people—particularly millennials—are being more careful, inquisitive and educated about what they eat. Our brand allows that. The vegetables we use arrive fresh every day at the store and we chop everything ourselves. The flavours in the meats are created from imported peppers we boil down to make into a paste. Yes, it’s a lot of work, but there is value in it. Nobody would argue the effort to prepare ingredients isn’t worth it. Plus, there’s the satisfaction of serving it.
I spend quite a bit of time interviewing potential franchisees and trying to convince them why they shouldn’t buy a Quesada. If after two hours they’re still interested, I know they’ve got the right mindset.
So what kind of questions do potential franchisees have about the business? By far, they want to know how running a Quesada will impact their lives. Most people I meet with want to have the freedom that owning your own business offers. I open my interviews by telling people I’m going to spend the next two hours trying to talk them out of buying a Quesada. Why’s that? Well, there’s a lot of work involved; it’s like having a baby. Just when you think you have a night off, the phone rings. If they’re still interested after two hours, I know I’m sitting with people who have the right mindset.
Taco ’bout training
Quesada is a hands-on business—we won’t sell to anyone who won’t be in their store. We also stress franchisees have to be out there promoting their restaurant. How do they do that? Well, we teach them to reach out to the businesses around them. You’d be surprised how well handing out coupons for a free burrito works. Like other area developers, I escort new franchisees on a walk around their neighbourhood, dropping into local businesses with coupons and menus and sharing details about our catering services. Yes, it takes courage to walk up to complete strangers and talk to them, but it’s worth doing.
I have to admit I see this part of the training as a bit of a test—if a franchisee is not comfortable promoting their business, I wonder if they should be doing this. But we try to make things as easy as possible and provide them with all the tools they need to be successful.
In addition to 30 hours of online instruction, franchisees will also spend two weeks in a regional training store learning everything they need to run the business. We let them serve customers, show them how to do the accounting, hire staff and market their business. Next comes five days in Toronto to be recertified by a corporate trainer. And when they finally open their store, an area developer is with them for the first week to make sure they are ready to be on their own.
Quesada’s decor mirrors the fresh-tasting flavours of the food. The brand is growing quickly in Ontario – Ottawa will be home to three new locations this year, one of them at Lansdowne Park, a historic sport, exhibition and entertainment facility.
Of course, a store’s location is a huge factor in its success. This is something Tom has ingrained in all area developers. In fact, I’ll spend two or three months looking at a location before we commit to renting it. Part of our research includes demographic analysis of how many people live in the area and the number of businesses operating there. We also want to know how much traffic we can expect for lunch and dinner? What about traffic on weekends? Is there catering potential among the businesses surrounding the store? If we don’t see enough potential in a site, we’ll move to another. In fact, there have been times when a franchisee and
I have sat across the street from a location having lunch and counting the number of people that walked by from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Finding the right location is a huge commitment time-wise and financially, but it’s all worth it.
So what are some of the challenges? Everybody struggles do something completely right. Marketing and talking with people to promote my restaurant are my forté, but I’ll admit I’m not a book guy or have a lot of patience for sitting down at a computer and going over numbers. I still do it, although it’s my least favourite part of the job. Over time, though, running the business becomes routine and franchisees find themselves thinking about opening more locations. In fact, all four of the franchisees I’ve opened restaurants with in the last two years are on to their second locations. They’ve found a niche and are having success with their stores. I think they’re also looking for another challenge. That tells me a few things: our concept works, I’m doing my job and they’re happy with their brand and success.
Every morning I roast the tomatoes that will become the basis for the salsa we serve. I know my customers appreciate the homemade flavour to our food. And in case you’re wondering, I also make the guacamole from scratch.
Steff Charbonneau is a Quesada Burritos & Tacos franchisee and area developer in Cornwall, Ont. He can be reached via e-mail at steffcharb@quesada.ca.
QUESADA BURRITOS & TACOS
Established: 2004
Date of first franchise: 2009
Franchise/corporate units: 57
Investment range: $171,000 to $248,000
Initial franchise fee: $20,000
Website: www.quesada.ca
E-mail: tomoneill@quesada.ca
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