We recently connected with Michael Franz and have shared our conversation below.

Michael , appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with what makes profitability in your industry a challenge – what would you say is the biggest challenge?

I believe the food industry has more challenges than any industry people can get into business for. Even further, a food truck has more challenges than anything restaurant for multiple reasons. Although restaurants and food trucks share similar challenges such as brand recognition and how to become more recognizable, the ecomony, and food costs; food trucks also have to deal with weather challenges, other cost variables such as event cost or other type os rent, and supply challenges. Out here in Arizona, our summers are BRUTAL. Combine the summer heat with the likes of having to use a a flat top griddle, fryers, and a stove/oven; it gets pretty bad. For example, our first year, we were serving from a hospital parking lot. We put together 3 meals for an order and bit the time we were finished, The inside truck temp was higher than 130 degrees. People ask, do you have an A/C unit? The unfortunate side is we do not due to our fan above the fryers. It’s so powerful removing the steam from everything that it would suck the cool air out with it. We manage to survive but it is a factor in profitability because there are days we have to force close due to the heat. That also affects the inventory we have to bring out. If we bring out too much, we end up throwing some away, thus effecting profit as well. Match that with rising food costs, and you have a classic story of how to rob Peter to pay Paul. When sales drop, you maneuver things around to survive personally and professionally. For us, we also have a brand recognition challenge. In our county here in Arizona, we are the only Puerto Rican food option so not many people know what consists of the ingredients and if people cant pronounce something, they are less likely to try it. We have built what we do have based on attention to the customer, special offers, etc. The hill is a hard one to climb, but we’re doing it.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

During the Covid Pandemic, as well know, things were closing left and right, especially in the hospitality industry. I worked for PayPal and my wife worked for Intel. We always had a dream to own a business and a food truck was always in the back of our mind. My wife loves to cook and because we knew where lived, nobody brought anything like what she does to the table (no pun intended), we figured let’s give it a shot. One night we were watching Chef, a movie written, produced, and starring Jon Favreau, Venus said “That’s what I want”. The real estate market boomed, we sold our house and decided to open the truck. Venus learned all of her cooking foundation from her mother so we also deiced to do it as a family business. We moved her mom and brother out here to AZ to work with us. As we were getting all the logistics together, we were trying to decide on a name and her mom said “Let’s call it Sofrito Tan Rico!” Sofrito is a marinade that is heavily used in carribean culture. you can by it jarred or make your own. Making it yourself is always the best in my opinion, and it gives the essential flavor to everything we cook. So it translates to “Sofrito so rich” or “Flavor so rich”. We may not have a million bucks, but Venus’ flavor is worth more than that so needless to say, we have lived up to the name. We opened January 7th, 2023 and haven’t looked back. Unfortunately, Venus’ mom passed away in March 2024 and her brother decided he didn’t want a part of it anymore so what I would say we are proud of is still keeping it going and growing it. We have managed to become a vendor for the Arizona Diamondbacks on their Puerto Rican Heritage Day and we are going to be part of the annual Puerto Rican Festival out here in Phoenix. We are also very proud because we build our clientele on kindness. Our customers are like family and they know that. We customize orders at times and our business phone number is my cell phone number so they know they can reach the owner if needed. How many businesses do that? We love what we do and as long as we can maintain and grow. we will do this as long as we can. We put Puerto Rican food on the map here in our county, especially in our city. All of that is a story to be proud of.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

A big lesson for me was understanding that the amount of work you have to put in, physically and emotionally, is immeasurable. There are days you are on cloud 9, loving everything, and making money. Then there are days you feel like giving up because the pressure is too much. Entrepreneurship is not for the weak at heart. You also have challenges in your specific sector that affect how well you do, unknown variables. Just because the food truck industry is a $4B industry here in the US, Your location and what you sell will determine how big of a slice you get of that pie. You learn pretty quickly a lot about yourself and the limits you reach. I suppose that is why a lot of entrepreneurs have a hard time going back to a typical 9-5 job. It’s never the same.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Prior to us opening to the public, for about 5 months, Venus was posting on Facebook, Tik Tok, and Instagram. We were practicing our menu, taking pics, recording reels, and uploading them. She works really hard to keep it going but we do get a lot of responses based on her posts. There are food related reels and reels of us having fun on the truck. I cannot begin to tell you how many people come up to us saying “Hey, I saw you on Tik Tok” or we were in Walmart and someone said “I see you dancing all over social media” . Just that they see it is a reward to us because that means they are aware of who we are. Now, she gets random attention and follows just because her reels show up in other FYP’s (For Your Page)

Contact Info:

• Instagram: official_sofrito_tan_rico
• Facebook: Sofrottanrico
• Yelp: Sofrito Tan Rico
• Other: Tik Tok – queenvee2020 and Sofrito Tan rico (We have 2 Tik Tok accts)

Image Credits

1st picture is courtesy of Brian Mordt /iNMaricopa publishing
All other pictures are courtesy of Venus Rivera-Franz