Beyond the Menu: Muchachos and Tavern on the Square

Welcome to Beyond the Menu, a podcast that takes a deep dive into the inner workings of the restaurant industry. Tune into each episode to hear from top tier restaurant operators and innovators who are shaping the industry, spearheading trends, and leading the way for the future.

In Episode 4, listen to Mandi Wooledge, Decision Logic’s President and COO, talk to Nick Maestas, Owner of Muchachos, and Matt Taylor, Owner of Tavern on the Square and The Other Room. Restaurant owners and entrepreneurs in Lincoln, Nebraska, Nick and Matt have worked hard to enable their businesses to survive and thrive during the pandemic. Their creativity and dedication show how innovation is alive and well at the local level.

Episode Highlights

On Innovating and Pivoting During the Pandemic:

Mandi Wooledge, President and COO of Decision Logic

Talk to us a little bit about some of the interesting things that you did during the pandemic. I know that I certainly took advantage of the craft cocktails to go! Tell me a little bit about that and how you innovated through the pandemic.

Matt Taylor, Owner of Tavern on the Square and The Other Room

2020 was a strange year to navigate. There wasn’t exactly a playbook to work from. We always laugh that bars are recession-resistant. Well, they’re not pandemic-proof. And so, for the first two weeks, we just fixed every wobbly barstool and painted the walls and kept the team busy. Creating culture and keeping culture going was important. Then after a couple weeks, we started to realize, “Oof, we’ve got to figure out some ways to make some dollars.”

And so we came up with these craft cocktail kits that you can purchase. We went from a bar to a retail store. We reformatted how everything was set up, and we had to find packaging and labeling and make batches and large quantity stuff and ask, “what are the garnishes?” So there was interesting stuff on the front end and honestly we quickly threw it out the door. One of them was a marbled rye kit early on that, after we crunched numbers, we realized that for every one that we sold, we were losing $1. So we revamped a little bit, but we got it down. It really was what kept the team busy and dollars flowing into the door throughout.

Mandi Wooledge, President and COO of Decision Logic

That’s great! Now, Nick, I know pre-pandemic and even through the pandemic, you were really working to try and innovate and shift the ideas of Lincoln. For those of our audience members that don’t know, Lincoln, Nebraska, isn’t super-food truck friendly yet. You’ve done a lot of things to really innovate through that and try to get Lincoln to be a little bit more mobile-friendly. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Nick Maestas, Owner of Muchachos

Absolutely. A couple years ago, when Tammy Ward came onto the city council, she and I had a quick conversation about how we can make Lincoln a little bit better for food trucks. We wanted to have a food truck court or a street where all food trucks can come and reserve parking spaces. We got together with other food trucks, got city planning involved, the legal teams too, and came up with an idea of a food truck pilot program where we’d have four or five different locations for five different days of the week where you could reserve space to park on public streets. Safely, of course. We had a press conference and everything was set and ready to go. Then, like Matt was saying, when basketball starts shutting down, you know things are getting serious.

We decided that wasn’t the best time to start doing that, and half the buildings were no longer occupied downtown. Had we set it up, it would have failed from the beginning. We wanted to make sure that it looked good when we did it. Everything’s still in place, we’re getting those conversations going again. But as far as our food truck went, we really changed our model. Like what Matt did, we changed from pulling up our truck to a business or a party at people’s houses, to a meal delivery kit. We would package up family meals and deliver them to your house for free. If we didn’t have that success, we probably wouldn’t have been able to open the restaurant when we did.

On the Power of Social Outreach and Brand

Mandi Wooledge, President and COO of Decision Logic

One of the things that I wanted to hit on is that, whether you’re a franchise operation or a local mom-and-pop shop, making sure that you have that strong social following is powerful. Matt, I know that you’re heavily involved in the social space. You’ve got a pretty strong following from both your personal as well as your business brand pages. Talk to me a little bit about the care that you put into social outreach so that you can make sure that folks know who you are and where you’re at.

Matt Taylor, Owner of Tavern on the Square and The Other Room

I think of it as three brands. I think there’s Tavern on The Square, the Other Room, and then my personal brand. And personal brand is so important. Hiring is really difficult right now. I put out, “hey, we’re hiring” from both Tavern’s and the Other Room’s pages, and we didn’t get anything. Then I personally put out, “hey, we’re hiring” and I got 18 emails in my inbox that day. So I use my personal brand to talk about business. Small business is something I’m very passionate about, so it’s important that I found my brand voice: what is the message? I either have to educate or entertain. There’s a lot of thought that goes into these things — it takes time.

It’s something I encourage my employees to do as well, because your personal brand is something you can take with you no matter where you go. If you leave and go to a different job, your personal brand stays what it is and then it just opens doors for you that would not have been open otherwise. You might get some flack — you’ve got to put up with some negative stuff once in a while, but that’s part of it. In the end, there’s far more good than there is bad that comes out of it.

Mandi Wooledge, President and COO of Decision Logic

I would say that just from my interactions with your page and your brand that you’re very intentional about that. And that’s one of the things that I think is really key. As far as the culture of the business that you’re running, and Nick, I see it in your brand as well, the amount of intention that you guys put into it shines. Nick, tell me a little bit about Muchachos. I know you’ve got your brand page, and then you’ve got your personal brand with a lot of intersection. Talk to me a little bit about how you handle the branding.

Nick Maestas, Owner of Muchachos

Sure! This kind of goes back 10 years to when I got on Twitter and found a local community within Lincoln where we just built real relationships with people. If it wasn’t for our local meat-smoking Twitter group, I don’t know that I would be where I am without those guys. It was just a fun way for me to build my personal brand that way. You just build relationships online, and you put your real self out there, which might not always be the good, happy, smiley stuff. It’s the hard stuff, the sad stuff sometimes, and people connect with that.

As people feel that they’re part of your story, that just grows and people talk about it. You get some growth, and it’s awesome to see a lot of people relate to your story. I just decided to keep doing it and kept moving forward with that. My business brand says things like, “hey, here’s our deal today!” But I think more people are relating to the personal social pages where they can see the growth, the struggle, and the success as well.

Listen to the full episode above, or on your favorite streaming platform.

Meet the Guest

Nick Maestas, Owner of Muchachos

Nick Maestas has owned and operated Muchachos food truck and restaurant since 2017. Nick dreamed up the concept as a result of his inspiration from his family’s recipes and love of BBQ, creating a fusion of flavors Lincoln loves.

“Put your real self out there, which might not always be the good, happy, smiley stuff… people connect with that.”

Matt Taylor, Owner of Tavern on the Square and The Other Room

Matt Taylor has owned and operated Tavern on the Square and The Other Room since 2010 and 2013. He also currently co-hosts the Bar Napkin Business Podcast. Matt is a self-described entrepreneur who delights in crafting premier experiences for his patrons at each of his different bar concepts.

“Small business is something I’m very passionate about, so it’s important that I found my brand voice: what is the message? I either have to educate or entertain.”

Muchachos is a food truck and restaurant that’s dedicated to tradition. At the heart of Muchachos is family. It’s what inspired Nick Maestas to dream up the concept of Muchachos. He took the New Mexican flavors he grew up watching his grandparents prepare and mixed them with his own love of smoking bbq. Together, they created a unique new flavor concept.

Tavern on the Square opened July 19th, 2010. It’s a neighborhood bar with a large outdoor courtyard surrounded by brick buildings built in the late 1800s in the Historic Haymarket Square. With daily specials that change seasonally and a comfortable, friendly environment, their main focus is their patrons, which they consider a close, extended family. The Other Room is a speakeasy nearby, though you didn’t hear that from us and we won’t tell you where it is or how to get in.