The reasons behind Tacos 4 Life’s new restaurant concept, Doblé Mexican Café, at 2235 Dave Ward Drive in Conway, lie both in the Conway chain’s mission to feed hungry children and in post-pandemic changes in the economy.
That location was previously a Tacos 4 Life, the second that Tacos 4 Life founders Austin Samuelson and his wife, Ashton, opened. Transforming it into Doblé Mexican Café (pronounced “doh-bleh” and meaning “double” in English) was a hard decision because the location was so profitable, Austin said. It was also a decision laced with nostalgia, because it was the site of the first restaurant the pair launched, Pitza 42. But the Samuelsons thought it was the best space for the new concept, which offers a streamlined menu of just eight core items in a smaller footprint.
Doblé’s motto is “Eat Good. Do Good. Double Good.” And Austin stressed that it’s a way for the restaurants to feed more children around the world. As most readers — and the restaurants’ patrons — know, the chain donates a portion of the cost of every meal purchased at a Tacos 4 Life to the nonprofit Feed My Starving Children. The chain has donated more than 30 million meals, Austin said.
But since the COVID-19 pandemic, both construction and real estate costs have increased, Austin said, and so the company is seeking to test Doblé as a new, smaller format. The Dave Ward Drive location is the company’s smallest, making it the natural choice.
There are now 25 Tacos 4 Life restaurants in seven states, with plans for stores in Virginia and South Carolina after the first of the year. The company is doing well, Austin said, and the original Tacos 4 Life concept remains successful. The average unit volume for each restaurant is $1.8 million to $2 million in sales a year, the company said, and the chain is on track to post $50 million in sales for 2023. Tacos 4 Life employs 340 workers in Arkansas.
“But there are a lot of towns here in the Southeast that are 30,000, 50,000, 60,000 people that are a little small for a Tacos 4 Life to go in,” he said. “We really need to have a population of about 100,000 people for a Tacos 4 Life to thrive.”
Doblé is a test to see “if we could take the mission — our meal-for-meal mission — to see if we could bring it to more communities,” Austin said.
Or, he added, the concept, which is 2,500 to 3,000 SF, might come to a Little Rock location that isn’t large enough to accommodate the typical, stand-alone 4,000-SF Tacos 4 Life. Doblé Mexican Cafés, should there be more of them, will likely be more “shopping center-focused,” Austin said.
The Doblé menu is new, though there are some crossover items, such as Tacos 4 Life’s queso. “We’re really focused more on entree-type items,” he said. The new concept features burritos, bowls, two different taco options and taco salad, among other items. “It’s a new menu. That’s been a lot of fun too.”
Should Doblé succeed, the company would open a few more corporate-owned locations and continue to prove out the concept, Austin said, and then begin to franchise. The 10 Tacos 4 Life restaurants in Arkansas are corporate-owned, while the 15 outside of the state are franchised.
“But we really want to prove the concept out first because … it’s really important for our franchisees, for them to be able to get a good return on their investment while [feeding] kids and [making] a difference,” he said.
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