We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Rodnia Attiq. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Rodnia below.

Hi Rodnia, thanks for joining us today. 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.

More than 20 years ago, my mom Rosario came with the idea to sell lamb tacos in San Diego, there were NO lamb tacos at all at that time, she thought it would become a business. She ask me to join her and I just came out go college with a degree..I ask her: Do you really want me to sell tacos with my degree?..She was YES!! It would be your own business for you and your brother.. We started in a driveway Saturdays and Sundays from 8am to 2 pm under a tent and 3 tables only -it was our own farmers market- just to try if this idea could work. Long story short first saturday we sold $3.75 dollars -3 tacos- . Three months later we were consuming 600 pounds of lamb per weekend- that’s 2,400 lbs a month, literally only in 8 days, people was going crazy coming with big pots, sometimes from LA asking for 5 lbs, 10 lbs of lamb barbacoa to go. The customers start saying: I told my father, my friend, my compadre to come to “El BORREGO” I was like: Who is EL BORREGO?..You are EL BORREGO because you sell lamb..-borrego means lamb- so it was a no brainer to name the restaurant EL BORREGO when we open officially the restaurant on 4280 El Cajon Blvd in San Diego in 2005, the rest is history.

Rodnia, 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?

When you are preparing Barbacoa in this case lamb barbacoa is because you are doing a meal for a very very special occasion, It takes a lot of time the original way to make it-more than 12 hours-, could be to celebrate a wedding, a quinceanera, a special family gathering. So according to our traditions we wanted to bring a little piece of Mexico to San Diego without leaving the States, with food that could bring families together and show other cultures what was a authentic simple Mexican food. Items on the menu includes: Squash blossom quesadillas, lamb Mixiotes, chilaquiles with our signature mole sauce, green pozole made with pumpkin seeds and let everyone knows that Mexican food its healthy and doesn’t need a lot of ingredients to prepare a delicious and tasty meal. We are a vegan and veggie friendly restaurant, so if you are not a lamb lover you can find great choices like potato roll taquitos, freshly made guacamole, and veggie quesadillas. We are proud to say that everything in the restaurant is made from scratch. And also we have a wonderful secluded garden on the back of the restaurant that fits more than 80 people, you can relax and enjoy the wonderful San diego weather with a great beer on tap and of course having a wonderful meal with your love ones.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

My mom is a 74 year old woman that ALWAYS believe in our Restaurant, she believe in the community and has this magic when she is preparing the food. She worked for Airlines as a flight dispatcher for more than 30 years. We always share our story and customers feel the love when they are enjoying their meal. I think the reputation comes from our story, from us being always there to take care of the customers, from the love to enjoy delicious and good food, consuming local and fresh ingredients. When customers are eating at the restaurant they close their eyes, and say: wow I haven’t being in Mexico the last 20-30 years and this food it seems that I’m in my mom’s or grandma’s backyard in Mexico when I was a little kid. The food and the experience transports customers to childhood and brings back memories of family and traditions, I think the reputation comes from the experience and from the mouth to mouth recommendation and from the consistency for the last 18 years.

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

The feeling and courage to start the restaurant came from the driveway experience and how fast the customers were asking to have a lamb place in San diego and not to wait for a weekend to enjoy good lamb barbacoa. So we start asking about the process to start in the States with a legal and legit business. We found an association called SCORE and they guide us, we got some capital ,but friends and family believe in the concept so they borrow 10,000 here, 8,000 there and so, until we were able to do everything official, transfer the money, create a corporation, hire an accountant, find a spot, get a lease, buy the equipment etc. Business was amazing at the beginning that within a year we didn’t have any debt at all. But in order to built 2,000 sq feet of patio on the back of the restaurant we keep in touch with SCORE that continue mentoring us and found new ones like CDC, Access to capital, Civic communities, SBDC and they were so wonderful that guide us in order to have the capital to built the backyard space and get a good interest rate for the loans. This associations are out there to help small business owners like us to grow and stay in business. Experience that would be so different and frustrating if we went to a bank.

Contact Info:

• Website: email: [email protected]
• Instagram: el_borrego_restaurant
• Facebook: @elborregosd
• Linkedin: El Borrego Restaurant
• Yelp: El Borrego Restaurant San Diego

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