A popular Mexican food chain restaurant closed its Elk Grove location earlier this month.
Chando’s Tacos, at 8235 Laguna Blvd., closed the doors to its brick-and-mortar site in Elk Grove for good on Aug. 1.
Chando’s founder and CEO Lisandro “Chando” Madrigal said that closing was a “difficult decision” but he wanted to focus on “quality, consistency and customer service.”
“It wasn’t performing the way that we expected it to. It started off a little flat and so we were kind of hoping for it to pick up and it just never really turned around the way that it should have. Just given the way business is right now I just wanted to focus on the existing locations that we have right now that are performing.”
Last year, Madrigal closed his Citrus Heights location that was open for three years about a month after he shut down his Chando’s Cantina in midtown Sacramento.
Madrigal still maintains multiple locations throughout the Sacramento region: on J Street, Arden Way, Power Inn Road, Pleasant Grove Boulevard in Roseville, Sunrise Boulevard in Fair Oaks, Boatman Avenue in West Sacramento and on campus at Sacramento State.
Possible reasons for slow business
Madrigal said he isn’t sure exactly what went wrong at the Elk Grove location.
“We seem to do well in other locations,” Madrigal said.
Madrigal said they did everything they could to keep the Elk Grove restaurant open. Ultimately, there were many things that he could have pointed toward that led to its downfall.
The Elk Grove location first opened in December 2020, according to a Chando’s Tacos Facebook post — right in the midst of a global pandemic that had many people staying home defending themselves from COVID-19.
“It didn’t start off as strong as it should have in the beginning,” Madrigal said. “Obviously there were post-pandemic challenges; that could very well be the case.”
He pointed out that there many businesses that were in the same Laguna Gateway II shopping plaza located on Laguna near Big Horn Boulevard have often opened and closed as well.
“It could be that we didn’t really have an anchor in that particular space.” Madrigal said. “I know for the longest time the main anchor, the main store (Dick’s) was a sporting goods store. That was gone for a while.”
The plaza includes businesses such as Sprouts, PetSmart, Red Robin, Sizzling Fresh Mongolian BBQ and Club Pilates.
“There are several restaurants that have been kind of going in and out of that particular location for a while,” Madrigal said referring to eateries such as Blaze Pizza which closed in 2020 and Chicken-N-Waffles, which closed earlier this year. “So it’s kind of hard to gauge and tell what exactly the challenges are or were. I mean, it could be a host of different things.”
He said the location is “a little more on the hidden side,” which makes it difficult to spot, and there are few ways to access the plaza.
“There’s only one way in, one way out of that place,” Madrigal said.
The arrival of The Ridge shopping center on Elk Grove Boulevard and Bruceville Road, he said, has attracted the majority of foot traffic in the city.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law in September 2022 that made it easier for taco stand and fruit cart owners to sell food as Senate Bill 972 simplified the rules for street vendors to obtain health permits and other barriers.
A flux of taco stands have appeared across Elk Grove street corridors, and Madrigal said it is directly competing with his business which provides the same type of food.
“The guys that just post up on any corner. That has affected not only myself but other restaurateurs that I speak to in the area,” Madrigal said. “There’s people that post up, just find a place on the corner. It’s busy and they’re smart about it. They just go up, they cook and then they pack their stuff and show up the next weekend or the next day.”
Madrigal added: “There’s a lot more choices and they’re priced at the same price that we are…Not taking anything away from them, more power to them. We hope that they do things, everybody’s got a right to do their business but it does affect us who are paying $12,000 a month in rent, taxes and other things.”
Elk Grove return not ruled out
Although the Elk Grove spot closed, Madrigal prided himself in retaining employees that wanted to keep their positions with Chando’s Tacos, placing them at the other locations.
As he moves forward focusing on his operating locations throughout the Sacramento area, Madrigal wants people to know that his model is built on quality, consistency, customer service and guest experience.
It was a tough decision, he said, to close the Elk Grove location.
“I just wanted to thank the Elk Grove community,” he said. “I want to make sure that we scale down so we can just focus and make sure that we give our best to the existing locations that we have open right now.”
Although the brick and mortar doors have closed, Chando’s isn’t closing the door on Elk Grove. Madrigal said that he still runs his food trucks and is looking into places in Elk Grove to set up shop.
“We’re definitely open to suggestions,” Madrigal said. “We have three food trucks moving around Sacramento and I want to allocate one specifically to Elk Grove.”
Source Agencies
