Celebrity-led restaurants are often easier to poke fun at than regard as serious businesses. (See: The Salt Bae monstrosity; anything Guy Fieri puts a finger on.) Danny Trejo, however, is a different story. The prolific actor opened up a chain of taco shops in 2016, splattering his face on everything from the hot sauce bottles to the side of the restaurant buildings. In case it wasn't clear from the Trejo's Tacos name, this was Danny Trejo's line of taco shops and he was fully backing the chain.
A couple years later, it's clear that the heavy-handed approach was the right way to go. Trejo's Tacos is continuing to expand and develop new forms, including a Cantina concept and coffee and donut shops. The success is a relief to Trejo's two business partners, first-time restaurateurs Ash Shah and Jeff Georgino.
"There have been so many bad celebrity restaurants that people assume it will be bad," Shah told Skift Table. "We want to be better than the other guys. We just put our spin on it."
So far, it's working.
