We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mario Vega a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Mario thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

In our industry its been generally the norm to have Back of House Staff (aka BOH) and Front of House Staff (aka FOH). That is to say you staff the Kitchen (BOH) and The Dining Room/Bar (FOH) with separate personnel. Being from a restaurant family this did not quite make sense to me as in our family restaurant you learn to do whatever is needed. The family owned restaurant I worked for early in my career was the same. Entering into a professional career path I found this was not the norm. In the restaurant companies I originally worked for there were Chefs (kitchen managers), Restaurant Managers (dining room/service managers), Bar Managers (Beverage Directors, Sommeliers, etc.), Event & Sales Managers and usually the General Manager that is the top of the hierarchy. I always found this confusing as how can you manage and direct a department such as the Kitchen or Culinary Department without having experience and or developed any expertise in the department. There are examples of Chef/GMs or Chef Proprietors certainly but they often are in the reverse situation attempting to manage a beverage program or even an accounting department through an individual without having fundamental knowledge of how it works. This leads to increased potential for inconsistencies and being taken advantage of. From my perspective, restaurants are unique in that a stand alone restaurant is an encompassing business from raw ingredients to sale of the finished product. When this is all happening within four walls under one roof it is beneficial to have multidisciplinary expertise. After a career in the restaurant industry there is no reason one should not be able to work and perform all duties within all departments of the restaurant. Later in my career I encountered restaurants and restaurant companies that did adopt this ethos. General Managers were required to be trained as Kitchen Managers, Restaurant Managers, Sales Managers and be proficient at analyzing a P&L statement. This type of company culture develops restaurateurs that are prime to become restaurant owners. Developing a concept in particular requires continuity from Beverage Program to Culinary Program and all aspects of the business, which is aided when one can understand and appreciate the details of each. As the saying goes a jack of all trades may be a master of none, but is better than a master of one.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a second generation restaurateur. I can’t remember not envisioning a career in the restaurant industry, particularly restaurant ownership and operations. For this reason I gravitated towards restaurant companies that were developing concepts and growing them. I wanted to understand how a restaurant is created from nothing and how you make a restaurant successful first and foremost and how you replicate that success. I am proud to have been a part of so many restaurant openings and worked with and for so many great restaurant professionals. After a 25 year career as a Restaurant Manager, Bar Manager, Event & Sales Manager, General Manager, Brand Director and President/COO I felt confident and ready to create my own restaurant. My first restaurant relied largely on my seafood expertise. Mario’s Ocean Club opened in 2018 and won Westword’s Best New Restaurant Award. While I had been trained as a Kitchen Manager in multiple concepts as part of my career this was the first time I would say I worked full time as the Chef of a restaurant, creating the entire menu and beverage program as well. I painted the restaurant, refinished and built the tables and basically remodeled the space I took over myself. This was a priceless experience and education. Now I focus on Concept Development for my restaurants Lake House Kitchen + Tavern and Mesa Latin Kitchen that I developed with my business partners Kevin and Kate Wessel. Kevin and Kate Own and License Le Peep Restaurants and provide valuable support, expertise and business enterprise administration, which allows us to focus on the fun stuff together!

Have you ever had to pivot?

The first restaurant I opened as my own was Mario’s Ocean Club. My original inspiration was to bring the freshest American Seafood possible to landlocked Denver in a small plates format alongside local and organic products. I utilized Colorado Striped Bass, Colorado Trout and Colorado Sturgeon as the main seafood offerings as well as Oregon Pink Shrimp, Atlantic Haddock and Maine Lobster. My bar was entirely stocked with Colorado Craft Beer, Craft Distilleries and Colorado Wines (as well as American). I wanted to showcase as many local producers as possible. This concept proved to be too niche for the neighborhood and market it was in. The price point was too high to generate the business volume needed to cover costs. While there were many accolades there just wasn’t enough traffic. My Clam Chowder, Linguini & Clams, Crab Cake, Fried Calamari, Lobster Roll, Trout Tacos and Fish and Chips were guest favorites. I transitioned the concept to more of a north east seafood shack eliminating the more expensive locally farmed seafood for more recognizable varieties. I maintained the scratch kitchen but branched out from the small plates, created a better value proposition on the meu and began to see the traffic increase both from regulars visiting more often and new guests.

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

During the first year of my first restaurant I started running out of cash and falling behind on my tax payments. I had 3 months of operating capital when I opened and felt hat I could make the restaurant profitable in 90 days given my experience and the location I chose. I chose to purchase a restaurant equipped with the restaurant infrastructure and remodel it to my concept. I also chose a restaurant with manageable rent and a manageable size. The restaurants I was accustomed to managing were 4,500 – 10,000 square feet with rents in the tens of thousands a month and staffs of 50 – 100 employees doing 5 million to 10 million in annual sales. As President/COO I had over 500 employees and 25 million dollars in annual sales company wide. I thought, I can make 1500 square feet at less than $3K per month in rent work for sure. Well smaller is not always easier. Yes I could do everything myself, but I would be turning guests away and the weekends being at capacity, but the location did not drive enough midweek traffic and I would be empty. I couldn’t get the restaurant to the magical $8-10K per week I needed to make it profitable. There were times in my career that $10K in sales would be slow lunch shift. The lesson I learned was how scale worked in the restaurant business and the smaller the scale the more likely you would need to be a full time employee to make it successful or take the risk of opening multiple locations to make it successful, which would require a large sum of capital. When I realized this I was mid concept change and 2 months behind on sales tax. Being that I was diligent about paying my bills and “balancing my checkbook.” I maintained enough of a vantage point to act in time. I took on a predatory loan with a high interest rate and aggressive payment schedule to cover payroll and outstanding expenses. I set up payment plans with the State and City as well as with my seafood vendor. The concept changes were working and I was able to meet the payment schedule which increased my credit rating and allowed me to secure a sizeable line of credit at a reasonable interest rate, which allowed me to consolidate all my debt into the line of credit. I had achieved the profitability I needed to keep the doors open and was debt free.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mesalatinkitchen.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mesalittleton/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MesaLittleton/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mario-vega-169b9796/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/mesa-latin-kitchen-littleton