We recently connected with Fernando Alvarado and have shared our conversation below.

Fernando, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Originally my fiancé and I started selling flower pots at the Spring Valley Swapmeet that my family makes in Mexico. During that time as swapmeet vendors we would occasionally take our own home made lunches or would need to buy food there on the occasions that we did not take lunch. We quickly got tired of the food at the swapmeet and kept taking our own food which was usually home made burritos I would make and they were always different kinds. Eventually my fiancé convinced me that I should start selling my burritos at the swapmeet as well and that’s how I got started as a food vendor. I was able to book clients for lunch delivery and meal drop offs that I soon realized being a food vendor was something I was much more passionate about and good at! I was selling over 250 burritos a day and could not keep up with the demand. Shortly after we decided I would focus as a food vendor primarily and started Nandoshotbox!

Fernando, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Hello! My name is Fernando. I am a San Diego transplant originally from riverside county and in love with San Diego. I still work as a social worker by day and a food vendor on weekends; hopefully next year I can quit my day job and dedicate myself 100% to my food business. As I mentioned earlier we originally started selling burritos at the swapmeet but shortly after we launched Nandoshotbox. We started cooking and selling large plates of foods such as ribs, burgers, tortas, guisados with rice and beans but people would always ask for me to sell them tacos of chicharron which is by far my most sold protein item on the menu; then we transitioned into being taco vendors. As a taco vendor we have been able to stand out by being the first street vendor to sell tacos de guisados; popular tacos in Mexico and also by reinventing the papa loca how I like to eat it. By being consistent and innovative we have maintained our place amongst our peers and clients as some of the most delicious tacos in SD county!
Recently we were invited to participate at the San Diego Tacofest and completely sold out. I was constantly asked by a lot of clients where the location to my restaurant or food truck was because they wanted to keep supporting us. When I told them we have no restaurant or food truck the customers were utterly shocked! But they were super encouraging and supporting which motivated us to keep working towards our goal of obtaining a food truck!

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

The first initial investment was around $250 dollars. That’s when I started selling burritos. I had bought the ingredients needed to make a large batch of burritos and sold them for $2 each; I ended up nearly tripling my investment! As my sales grew I kept reinvesting the money into better equipment and more ingredients. Eventually when I decided to be mobile vendor as Nandoshotbox I was able to purchase my grill my canopy and all of my items through the money I had earned from my sales. Thankfully I have not needed to come out of pocket ever since that day. I have been able to maintain a constant income through food sales and always reinvest my earnings into our business to be able to better serve and cater to our clients! Just last month in July I upgraded from a tiny Toyota Matrix to a Ford Transit van which is almost 3x larger than the Toyota and that was also a business expense which was acquired with our earnings as well, thank you to our supporters for making that possible! Next is a food truck!

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Consistency and innovation. Since the day we started my fiancé and I had agreed that one thing we wanted to do is try to sell at as many locations as possible. We really wanted to visit as many locations throughout San Diego to build our brand recognition and bring awareness to our foods from the many small towns within our city. We focused on having different items on our menu that are not typically found at most taco shops and definitely not found by most street vendors. We still have normal traditional tacos, but having our guisados, other menu items, and not being afraid to make those items in my own version has helped us to stand out. I am constantly in the kitchen trying new ideas, new recipes, new ingredients. I have so many that I can’t wait to share with my clients. Every few months I change my menu items or add new ones to other existing options to ensure clients have more to choose from in case the menu gets a bit old. We have had a lot of success by rotating our menu and announcing new items or limited time before a menu change. By making instagram posts with questions and polls it’s allowed for us to better understand what it is that our customers want to see us bring out for future events or what they want us to bring back on the menu. Listening to customer feedback and putting it into practice has also helped in maintaining strong relationships with repeat customers!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Nandoshotbox
• Other: TikTok: Nandoshotbox_

Image Credits
Denisse Esqueda