With its beach-scenes mural, thatched palapa and surfboard countertop, Taco Del Mar shouts Baja surf shack. But behind the whimsical, sun-and-fun store décor, the fast-casual Mexican chain is using some rather high-tech cooking equipment to keep its trademark “mondo” burritos and “rippin” fish tacos — to use surfer parlance — just right.
The notable examples are the lightning-fast accelerated-cooking ovens that it uses to prepare frozen breaded fish fillets for fish tacos and the advanced cook-and-hold ovens that rethermalize its prepared burrito fillings. Such equipment upgrades signal an effort by the 258-unit, Seattle-based chain to enhance speed of service and food quality as it continues an expansion tear that should bring 100 new stores this year. All but one unit in the system is franchise-owned.
The kitchen improvements are especially important as Taco Del Mar increasingly goes head-to-head with players like Chipotle Mexican Grill, Moe’s Southwest Grill, Baja Fresh Mexican Grill and Qdoba Mexican Grill, all of which roll a mean burrito, too. Customers of the fast-casual Mexican segment have high expectations for freshness and quality. “You always want your food to taste as good as it can,” said Jeff Masterjohn, owner of seven franchised Taco Del Mar units in greater Seattle. “And you can’t keep people waiting.” He and his partner Mark Cicourel own the master development territory for southwest Washington State and Oregon, where they’d like to open another 70 stores.
One advantage that Taco Del Mar has over most of its rivals is double-barreled menu signatures. In addition to its popular burritos, hand-rolled with generous portions of fillings like braised chicken, carne asada steak and seasoned pork, it also touts the Baja-style fish taco, which co-founder James Schmidt encountered in the beachside eateries of San Diego as a college student. It’s built on a corn tortilla, with breaded Alaskan pollock, cheese, shredded cabbage, a squeeze of lime, pico de gallo and a proprietary white sauce that Masterjohn described as “addictive.”
The fish taco is the fourth best-selling item in Masterjohn’s stores and a key differentiator of the concept. “Some people don’t know what to make of it,” said Masterjohn. “But it’s actually very popular. I always say I’ll buy it if you don’t like it.” That rarely happens.
The fish taco sells “way stronger” in West Coast stores than it does in, say, Nebraska, Masterjohn said. “But it may catch on in places like Connecticut and Maine as we move in.”
Fish is the only protein at Taco Del Mar that is fully cooked inside the store. It arrives portioned, breaded and frozen and goes right from the freezer into the accelerated-cooking oven. The device uses a combination of convection heat, impingement pressure and up to 1,500 watts of microwave power to cook 10-15 times faster than conventional convection ovens. It replaced a rapid-cooking oven that cooks via high-intensity light waves. According to Masterjohn, the new oven is “way faster” than the former one and more dependable to boot. “It’s more expensive — I’ll guess $1,500 more,” said Masterjohn. But he said that franchisees will save money in the long run on repairs and replacement parts with the new oven.
“With the oven we use now, we can do smaller plates much quicker and keep the product much fresher,” added Masterjohn. It cooks a dozen portions of fish in just two and a half minutes. “At off-peak times, you can almost cook to order.” Smaller batches, of course, mean less waste. For quality’s sake, Taco Del Mar keeps cooked fish fillets no longer than 15 minutes in a hot-holding device at 170 degrees Fahrenheit.
Taco Del Mar follows the industry practice of relying on vendors to prepare staple proteins like carne asada steak, braised chicken, seasoned pork, beans and seasoned ground beef. The benefits are quality, consistency, labor reduction and food safety across the system. To ensure that such products taste their best in burritos and tacos, they’re warmed in an advanced cook-and-hold oven that uses a combination of temperature-controlled water vapor and dry-air heat. “It’s a slick piece of equipment,” noted Masterjohn.