🧱Brick & Mortar🤠
Thinking out loud, envisioning TUCKEDito storefront.

By: Mitch Wooderson
Thinking out loud, envisioning TUCKEDito storefront.
We'll probably add things to this as we think of them until the storefront actually exists.
💬 Sections in This Post
- Dining
- Menu
- Kitchen
- Staffing
- Processes
🏪 Size Break Down
~1240 Sq feet
- 540 Sq feet (dining area)
- 300 Sq feet (Cooking Area)
- 200 Sq feet (dishes & refrigeration/walk-in)
- 200 Sq feet (0ffice/dry store)
🍽Dining
What's the restaurant look like?
Restaurant size and seating capacity
*size needs to support rent cost
- People: 30
- Sq Ft: 540 (18 sq ft per person)
- Seats: 20
- Standing bar on the side wall
- Outside seating for sure. Something is needed outside to attract attention to the restaurant
Interesting Layouts 👇🏻



Service style
- Fast Casual
- Order at the counter and get called back up when your order is ready.
General ambiance, including décor and music
- Good Vibes Group photo wall
- Good vibes tunes, make music a staple (maybe have something live here and there)
- Salsa/toppings cart by LA taco carts.
Options for styles of seating, lighting, and other fixtures
- Bright but not fluorescent, neon light signs, good vibes
- Simple but with intense pops of colors
- Stools for bar and small tables
- Open kitchen layout
Operating hours
- Tuesday - Saturday (11-8)
- Maybe Wednesday - Sunday instead?
- Do we want to grab a work lunch crowd? If so, then open 12 T-F. If not, open at 430 and stay open until 9.
- I think maybe not be open until and then take the food cart places for lunch.
- Food truck prep done in mornings (better for open kitchen layout). Then restaurant prep begins at noon.
Unique Selling Points
- Grab & go bow tie bowls (bow-tie on top to look like a present)
- Great Vibes Happy Hour club (invite a friend, get a taquito)
📜Menu
Items
🌯 Taquitos
- 3-4 mainstays and 2-3 rotating
🌮Tacos
Can order "heavy" (fried and we put on thwwwq e toppings), or "light" (not fried, you put on the toppings)
Offer 2 or 3 at a time
- Brisket - caramelized or white onion, sauce(B-sauce or salsa negra), cilantro (tortilla dipped in fat)
- Chicken - red onion, spicy crema, cilantro
- Carnitas - white onion, salsa verde, cilantro
- Chorizo - white onion,
- Ribeye (only on occasion) -
- Black Bean Puree -
🥗 Bowls
- Meat: Taquito mix or taco meat
- Bases: Rice & Beans
- Toppings: Red onion, white onion, caramelized onion, roasted poblano pepper, diced tomato, cilantro
- Sauces: See below
🍚 Sides
- Citrus Sweet Corn
- Rice
- Beans
- Avocado tomato salad
- Guac
🥫Sauces
- B-Sauce
- Lime Crema
- Spicy Crema 🌶
- Salsa Verde 🌶
- Salsa Negra 🌶🌶
- Schmoke 🌶🌶🌶
🍰 Dessert
Will be too easy not to offer
- Churros
- Strawberries con crema
Catering
🌯🌯Taquito Trays
- 10, 20, 30
- come with sauce
🌮🌮Taco Trays
- 15 & 30
- come with sauce
🌯🌮 "Variety" Options
- Taquitos & tacos
- Make your own bowl: meat, rice, beans, toppings
🚛 Sourcing
- Ingredients must be vibrant
- Deliveries? or can we still pick up produce ourselves?
- Could we look to local suppliers? would need to see how this affected our profit margins. It would be cool to build out multiple storefronts in different towns, all using suppliers local to this area. Of course I'm sure this could get confusing and we would also miss out on economies of scale.
🏷 Other Items for Sale
- Jarred Sauces
- Taco Kits
- To-go meals
- Masa
- Frozen taquitos
- Merch
🔪Kitchen
What's it look like.
- 300 Sq feet (Cooking Area)
- 200 Sq Feet (dishes & Walk-in)
🥘🔪👨🏻🍳Equipment
*Listed in order of importance. "#" Denotes Essential items
#Flat Tops (1 or 2)
- one for taquitos, tacos, meats (60-72in)
- one small one for tortillas/sauces.(28in)
#Stove Top
- 6 burner
- 1 or 2 large low burners (this way the huge heave pots can easily be slid onto carts to move)

- Possibly one huge carnitas pot on its own like in this picture

#Convection oven
- double decker would be ideal so space underneath isn't wasted
#Meat Prep Table
- Huge cutting board or butcher block, hole in it to wipe chicken into
#Sinks
- food prep sink
- hand sink
- grease drain
#Steam table
- next to griddle for taquitos
#Ice Machine
Walk in fridge
- racks for meats, produce, dairy, and finished food with a cart dedicated to eat one to move things in and out
- if no walk-in we will need to have 3-4 refrigerators.
Traditional Oven
- for slow cooking (brisket, and pork shoulder)
Food Warmer
- start out with a small one for prepped food (mainly taquito mixes)
Sauce Station
- Area with big bowl, prep cutting board, and blender, to make sauce.
- maybe an induction hot plate
🌮 General
- Kitchen in front, dishwashing in back with carts and dish bins to move dishes to back
- Everything on wheels
Mock Layout

🤷🏻♂️ Maybes
- Al pastor trompo - if we could get detachable one we could take it to catering events and have it in store.
🤔 Things to Think About
- What will our electrical and gas needs be?
💁🏻♂️Staffing
*will depend on size of kitchen (ideal size staff would be 5 people)
Register
- takes orders, manages money
Griddle Operator
- manages everything on griddle
Order Expediter
- keeps track of tickets and gathers completed orders
- Places orders on pick-up counter
Taco/taquito assembler
- during off hours this responsibility is shared between griddle man and order expediter
- gets sides for orders
Tortilla maker (hopefully)
- makes all tortillas
🛠Processes
Current Process as a pop-up taquito shop listed here 👇🏻

The processes listed below are what I envision for a TUCKEDito storefront. Neither of us have ever run a kitchen, so not sure what to expect.
Purchasing
Go by weekly and bi-weekly purchases listed in excel file.
Prep/Cooking
Sauces
- sauces made every other day before opening
- Prep for sauce done every other day before opening then place into a designated refrigerator space
Meat
- meat prep done every morning while meat that was prep the following morning is being cooked.
Toppings
- prepped each morning.
Inventory
We take physical inventory once a week and manually update our excel file. This way our purchasing list is correct when the file updates. The file weighs what’s needed for the week’s menu against the current inventory to get what we need to purchase for the week.
