Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Gabriel Amaya. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Gabriel, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.
Biggest risk i have taken is quitting my regular 9-5 job take my entire 401K out and start my own Restaurant without knowing if it was going to make it through or end up closing it down few months later.
Gabriel, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
it was originally my partner’s idea. He had always wanted to open a restaurant in honor of His late mother who used to own a small restaurant in Mexico at the town they are from. we came to terms that he will do the cooking and i will be in charge of the decorations and administrating the business. We both agree on paying a tribute to the Greatest Frida Kahlo giving the fact that iam a huge fan of her art and work. and that’s how everything started. He came up with great authentic homemade recipes and put it all together few years back. and ever since then we have had a lot of loyal customers who love our food and the home feeling when you are sitting in our dining room
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
funding Frida’s Tacolandia Restaurant was a bit risky for us. we basically put our savings and 401k together and started from there. main risk was losing all of our retirement funds and be left with no emergency funds or anything to spend.
Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?
as many business owners have experience, when Covid-19 Hit, it hit a lot of us (small business) very hard. I remember having a very serious chat with my business partner 2 months after covid started, telling him that June 2020 will be our last month in business. we had applied for many resources to help the business, with different lending agencies or small business supporters but we would always get the same answer (funds are gone) we regret that we can help you guys. Thank God 1 week before June ended, we woke up with our bank account had a large deposit made from the SBA from a loan we had requested since March when the pandemic started. we cried of joy because at that moment we knew that we still had hope, we can still stay strong and continue pushing forward.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @fridastacolandia
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fridastacolandia/