Opening a restaurant is challenging in the best of times, but throw in a global pandemic and it's brutal. Just ask Brian McLaughlin, owner of soon-to-launch Locales Tacos y Tequila in Hingham, Massachusetts. McLaughlin had planned to open his taco shop in July 2020, but sourcing equipment, finding tradespeople to commit to the job, ever-evolving Covid protocols and regulations, supply chain disruptions, skyrocketing food costs and a restaurant staff shortage hampered his efforts. Join the conversation as McLaughlin shares the hurdles he had to clear and why pivoting to a new business model may have been the best thing that could have happened.

:00 Ally Donnelly

Hi and welcome to the Hingham Cast. This episode is brought to you by Erica Colantonio with Planter Hill Properties….

I’m your host, Ally Donnelly. I spent 20 years in the TV news business, but like so many of us, I’ve pivoted. Picking up a new mic to tell stories in a new way. Here, on Boston’s South Shore.


The Hingham Cast is hyper local, looking at the world through the lens of one small town - my town. Our mission is Connection, Community. Conversation. Let’s start here…Let’s start now.

0:46 Ally Donnelly

Oh, God, no. I’m not putting you in there.

Brian McLaughlin

I don’t mind a little sweat.

Ally Donnelly

You’re gonna be like a dog overheating I’m going to have to call 911.

Brian McLaughlin

I guess I could use a little weight loss right now...

0:57 Ally Donnelly

Brian McLaughlin is so busy, it’s hard to find a quiet moment or quiet place to talk.

Alright, try that. Get comfortable and then get comfortable and ready for death?

Brian McLaughlin

Yeah. laughter….

1:09 Ally Donnelly

He owns the new restaurant Locales Tacos y Tequila in the old Crow’s Landing spot in Crow Point. This is the second day he’s open for a pop up, takeout lunch. As staff bustles inside, Brian sits in his minivan, with busted AC, in the middle of a heat wave.

1:25 Brian McLaughlin

Hold on, one sec. I'm gonna hop in the backseat

Ally Donnelly

Ok.

Brian McLaughlin

And put it on the minivan. All right, let's see this try works any better.

Ally Donnelly

The pop ups are like mini soft openings to let staff train into a rhythm and work out any kinks.

1:59 Ally Donnelly

On the day of the first pop-up, they posted on Facebook to let people know they’d be cooking up their Mexican street tacos and...

2:05 Brian McLaughlin

2:22 Brian McLaughlin

It was overwhelming, but in a great way.

Ally Donnelly

That's awesome. That's awesome. So for people who don't or haven't read much about it, tell me about Locales.

2:31 Brian McLaughlin

Locales is tacos and tequila. Locales is kind of a state of mind we've created where it's, it's a place in Mexico. It represents kind of those coastal towns where tacos is kind of like it's weaved into the fabric, it's not just a food, it's kind of the culture of these towns. I moved, as a kid growing up in Long Island, I moved out to California when I was 20 years old after spending almost six years in Arizona. The Mexican culture in general just became something I fell in love with. And it was, this is kind of a re-creation of all the experiences that I've had, but it’s definitely, it’s a taco menu. It's tacos, my love for tequila and mezcal, and all agave spirits. It's basically a passion project for me, but I know that other people would share in the joy of it. So that's what we're doing.

3:17 Ally Donnelly

What can people expect in terms of food I came in late today and I had crunchy tacos, carnitas.

3:31 Brian McLaughlin

So right now we are grilling off pollo asado, which is a grilled, marinade’d chicken.

3:29 Ally Donnelly

So, map out the menu a little bit for me

3:32 Brian McLaughlin

So originally, the idea was to be much broader menu. As we're doing these little pop-ups, I'm realizing the volume that we can handle in the kitchens. We're kind of steering ourselves to do what we do best and what we think that people would fall in love with most, so, we're doing tacos. We're doing, what you mentioned, you had the crispy tacos. Crispy tacos is a soft tortilla wrapped, around a crispy tortilla, stuffed with cheese, jack cheese, pinto beans, stuffed with meat of your choice - so carnitas, carne asada, pollo asada.

Ally Donnelly

Can you hear the crunch? Mmm that’s good.

4:16 Brian McLaughlin

Classic street tacos where we have a four-and-a-half-inch tortilla, we stuffed that with a meat of choice. You know diced onions and cilantro. We're doing quesadilla suizas? Which is a dirty quesadilla. So it's kind of like a burrito, but, it's a stuffed quesadilla. All of our all of our meats and stuff we marinate for several days here, marinades that we created ourselves, we've got delicious fresh sauces that we make every day and a great salsa verde, sala rojo, which is a roasted tomato salsa. We've pico de gallo, we do a housemaid habañero salsa that is on fire literally and figuratively it’s so good.

4:52 Brian McLaughlin

It’s a very simple menu, so then we're doing just an elote con queso, which is a Mexican street corn, guacamole, chips and salsa. We're trying to keep it simple so that people know what they're coming back for. It's not going to be a huge menu, so you're not going to be getting chile rellenos or enchiladas and stuff like that. This is strictly a taco joint.

5:10 Ally Donnelly

Okay, your bar is beautiful, first of all. If people had gone to Crow’s landing it's kind of obviously same infrastructure so to speak, but the colors, and the wallpaper behind it with the cacti and just the bottles are beautiful. Tell me about the bar and how you put that together?

5:28 Brian McLaughlin

I mean, if you ask Chris Heim, my manager he probably tell you the bit, I might be the bane of his existence. In one of those I had an idea to start with, I probably changed it three times, which added extra labor to the project. There's a kind of a mid-century vibe in Mexico especially on the West Coast as you go down the coast that is, it's really prevalent and the vibrant colors that they have there are, again, part of their culture and I thought grabbing on to some of that and going with these kind of like muted tones but vibrant at the same time. So, I guess you kind of have to see it to believe it. It was kind of one of those…we changed it as we went and whatever felt good is what we decided to land on. We've got a beautiful yellow bar, it's much brighter inside than it was in the past, which I think adds airy coastal feel. As far as the bottles go. Mexican tequila and mezcals, they're just incredible spirits like, the companies there, the distilleries employ entire towns to create these beautiful bottles and beautiful labels to them and the colors and stuff like that. Those are alone are just simple and gorgeous. So it just kind of helps add to the vibe.

Ally Donnelly

Yeah, it's funny. Chris offered to give me a taste of any of the tequilas, you know, he wanted me to experience that. I said, Oh, no, no, tequila makes me angry. He’s like “then you're not you're not having the right tequila.” So he did pour me his favorite and I think I've got a little clip of sound of it…

6:53 Chris Heim

This is a high end tequila. It’s an anejo, and despite it being an anejo it is clear, usually anajos will have a color from the aging in the barrel. This is actually purified four times, through charcoal filtering, which keep. it as you can see, clear.

Ally Donnelly

I’m gonna be super honest, you okay with that?

Chris Heim

I want you to be honest

Ally Donnelly

It’s got a kick to it.

Chris Heim

It’s still tequila.

Ally Donnelly

It is good. Honestly, I never would have said I would like this.

7:24 Ally Donnelly

I have to say it was good. I was it was a it was an experience, which is not what I necessarily because I've stayed away from tequila since my college days. You know?

Brian McLaughlin

That's, that's kind of what we're trying to touch on here. I think, for many, tequila in general is one of those. It's a bit intimidating because most people have had that Jose Cuervo college experience where all reminds him of his like, basically throwing up afterwards.

Ally Donnelly

Yeah. Haha.

Brian McLaughlin

The problems that came with that. But I think what our goal is here is the educational part of it. You know, most people walk into our bar and you kind of look or gravitate towards the bottles that you know. And on purpose, we've kind of specifically chosen ones it's going to be unless you're a real agave aficionado, or tequila aficionado, it's gonna be hard to find something that you really recognize well, which helps promote the conversation of like, okay, talk to me, what, what am i drinking here? Let's have this conversation and through this education of it, I think we'll gain some trust from the patrons, and it'll grow some appreciation and perhaps make them more inquisitive to try other ones. Which it's kind of the for me, it's the that's the fun part of service, because that creates the experience.

[Break]

8:30 Ally Donnelly

Let’s head to break with bartender Peter Finnegan shaking up the classic Margarita.

Peter Finnegan

House margarita with tequila, lime juice, and then our simple syrup

Alley Donelly

And straining it up for customers Billy Litwin and Tommy Hastings

Billy or Tommy

It sucked my soul and blew my mind. Laughter. 7:14

I think I’ll be coming here a lot.

Ally Donnelly

Riding your bike, or no?

Billy or Tommy

Probably on my bike, Yes.

Ally Donnelly

I want to thank our episode sponsor–Realtor Erica Colantonio with Planter Hill Properties. Erica grew up in Hingham, she’s raising her girls in Hingham. She understands and is invested in this community. So, if you buying or selling a home or want to help someone looking in Hingham, connect with Erica. She knows the neighborhoods, the schools and can help find the perfect home for you. Reach out at Erica@PlanterHill.com. Okay, back to our conversation with Brian. And, what a crazy time to open a restaurant

9:27 Ally Donnelly

Um. You know, talking about service, you already have a very successful business in Cohasset and if people haven't tried Seabird Coffee, I highly recommend it. But, you know, you're starting this taco shop, as a global pandemic is unfolding. What was going through your mind as you're like, oh my gosh, here we go.

9:45 Brian McLaughlin

It's a great. That’s a great question. To be honest, I signed the lease before the pandemic started. And when it started the landlords of this building we’re leasing, are incredible, such nice people. They kind of gave us an out and they were like, do you guys want to still do this? And it was, you know, sometimes chaos breeds innovation and breeds opportunity. And I felt like, if they were so willing, and so kind to kind of get help get us through this, it was one of those, I was like you know what, here's an opportunity, I've kind of got to seize it. I know this, we're going to go back to normal at some point and this obviously led to many hiccups of why it's taken us so long to open. But, I think we've through that time have gotten to even change the business model that we started with and I think the final product, I couldn't be more thrilled to be doing this project. But it’s probably not the most ideal time, but, I also think, you know, there's, there's no time like the present. If you really want to do something, you might as well try it.

10:48 Ally Donnelly

Brian McLaughlin

Umm, well whatever here I had left in my head was being pulled out. But, you know, there's, there's, there's plenty of hiccups through this process. And because of COVID, that did change a lot of processes within the town, and we're just trying to get ahold of, you know, contractors or laborers and stuff like that. There were more hiccups and hurdles. But, I wanted to open last summer, I'm actually happy that we didn't. I think it works in our favor that we're we get to open closer to the way that we wanted to originally, now we're dealing with a bit of a labor shortage. But we'll get through it.

11:33 Ally Donnelly

Yeah, it's interesting. I want to ask you about staffing. The National Federation of Independent Business did a survey recently. And it showed that 32% of small employers are experiencing a significant staffing shortage. What does that look like on the local level for you?

Brian McLaughlin

I mean it's definitely apparent. I mean, I've definitely, I've put something up on Indeed, which is one of those job recruiting websites. We had probably 50 people respond to it, one that actually followed through. So, you know, I can't explain why or what the what the rationale was behind that. But because we're already mid-summer, a lot of people already have their jobs or their summer jobs, especially those kids home from college. It's the seasoned that's in the restaurant industry, the bartenders and servers, they've been around for years. I'm looking for them, I'd like to see where they are and perhaps we'll know more in September. It's led to its challenges, it’s leading to it’s challenges now, but.

12:28 Ally Donnelly

Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, you hear it on the national stage, but the same small business survey, or independent business surveys showed 63% of businesses have either raised their wages, or another 13% of added benefits or signing bonuses. Like how do you see that playing out for you, if you need, you know, legit veteran food service folks, and so does every other restaurant in town?

12:53 Brian McLaughlin

I mean, it's a beautiful time to be looking for a job, in my opinion. &ou can actually get paid with what maybe what you'd like to get paid. Which service industry is tough. I've always believed in kind of overpaying people, especially if you find great staff, you want to create an environment, you don't want them to leave. You want them to love where they work, you want to be proud of where they work and so I'm comfortable paying people. But, the unfortunate part is some of that cost sometimes has to be then transferred to a customer. You know, we're trying to keep our price at a fair price that we think, you know, it's Mexican food, it's street food, it's tacos, so it can't be egregious. But at the same time, I also can’t lose money trying to produce a business. So that cost sometimes has to be transferred over to a customer. And I think the unfortunate part of this kind of labor crisis, if you will, is going to see that that prices of food will have to go up and a lot of restaurants will have to raise the prices because of that, which is just unfortunate. But it's unfortunately, that's just the price of doing business.

Ally Donnelly

Yeah. I mean, you know, I talked to a lot of chef friends in Boston and Cambridge, and they're also saying, I mean, supply chain has been a problem. But you know, they're also saying the food, they're ordering the supplies they're ordering, are going through the roof. Have you seen that too?

14:10 Brian McLaughlin

Absolutely. For many of our suppliers who you know, even if they say you order on Tuesday, and it's supposed to come on Wednesday, and they give you a call the next day and like, can we get it to you on Friday? We don't have enough people to pack the trucks. So that anything that you were planning on cooking the next day is not arriving till Friday kind of changes. Okay, now what am I cooking? That’s a problem for sure. The prices of certain products that we're buying have definitely gone through the roof. We're going through limes and roma tomatoes and avocados, avocados are already expensive. If they go any more expensive we're gonna have to find another vegetable to make guacamole with, but,

Ally Donnelly

Artichoke guacamole is excellent

Brian McLaughlin

Right, yeah. But it's gonna be seen for sure across the board. So hopefully we can, when everybody does get back to our cities prices may come down or we just live with it within a different system. I'm not sure.

[Break]

15:06 Ally Donnelly

Let’s take a quick break here to say if you like The Hingham ‘Cast, we would love it if you’d nominate us for the Podcast, People’s Choice Awards. It takes just a few minutes, log on to Podcast Awards dot com, hit the blue nominate bar, and follow the instructions. You can vote for us under two categories--News & Politics and Society & Culture. We’re competing with the likes of This American Life and the New York Times the Daily, so we need every vote. Again, it’s PodcastAwards.com, vote for The Hingham ‘Cast. Thanks

Ok let’s get back to Brian and the nitty gritty details. When and how they’ll be open, will they take reservations? Bar service outside? And not to be missed: Brian’s favorite things on the menu.

15:52 Ally Donnelly

Why did you pick Hingham? Was it just kind of looking for a spot and you landed on this or did you want to be in Hingham? Talk to me a little bit about that?

Brian McLaughlin

I mean, Hingham was the first place I moved to on the south shore. When my when we moved here, my wife had a job at Talbots and we lived in the Shipyard. For me I didn't grew up on the south shore. So, to me the South Shore is almost like a one giant town. I don't see the boundaries that many who grew up here do. I live, I have a town I have a business in Cohasset and Duxbury, and now a business in Hingham. I think it's, for me just a way to spread my wings and to kind of meet more people and more towns and the location, obviously is one of the number one drivers for why I chose this spot. But also, Hingham’s kinda of close to my heart as most the friends we first made when we got here all live here. So, I feel like a kind of an honorary Hingham resident.

16:40 Ally Donnelly

Nice. So, little bit brass tax. So, you're not starting out fully open lunch and dinner. Tell me about that.

Brian McLaughlin

Yeah, part of that labor shortage has kind of led us to pivot a bit. So, we're going to be doing kind of like an L.A. road-stand style lunch. Where we've got a pass through window, we're going to be doing it so it's takeout and it kind of helps me eliminate some of the front of house staff from the front, not to eliminate, but I just can't fill that role at the moment. And I need to make sure that I'm going into the fall prepared correctly so by hiring just seasonal people to be here for a month, I'm gonna be back in this position in August. So, our thought was, we're going to do this–great way to get the kitchen ready learning these new products, learning this new style of taco Getting this done during the day as a takeout option would work well and then at night, open it up as a full-service restaurant. The goal was to open the next week, as I spoke to you earlier today we've had a few hiccups on the interior of the restaurant that we're going to have to correct before next week to do that. Namely some of the gas lines and stuff.

Ally Donnelly

So just so we can set this the tone. Brian and I are talking on Thursday of what will now be last week. So he's hoping to open tomorrow at this as we stand at this like fractured moment in time. But when I got there today, you were on the you're on the phone with somebody tell me about that?

Brian McLaughlin

Yeah, I mean, the beauty of the soft openings is you find out all the little pressure points within a restaurant. And one of the key pressure points is making sure that you have enough gas coming from the street to your building, so you can actually cook the food. And the truth is the meter sized correctly for the amount of gas it's supposed to be coming in, there was a miscalculation I think in the equipment that we have and the gas meter that was, is attached the building. So, it needs to be sized up. We've got it lined up to be fixed next week, but, it needs to be fixed in order for us to operate in a full level. Right now, I have to turn off certain equipment in order to make the other one’s work. The goal is now we're not going to open until we have that result. So, if tomorrow is the day, if it's going to be on Wednesday, or if it might have to be on Thursday, then that's, again, one of the circumstances of, you know, these little hiccups that we find.

Ally Donnelly

So let's say you're not ready to open inside yet. We keep doing the pop ups for lunch, will those be consistent or not yet?

Brian McLaughlin

So my goal would be to open up for lunch, on Wednesday and dinner. And then hopefully we're open forever that from that point on. If for some reason there's a hiccup, then we will do another pop-up. Right now, I have staff training and marinating chicken and marinating pork and meat and stuff - I don't want the product to go to waste. So, we're just coming up with solutions, which is what led to these pop ups and like I need them to practice and train and get their reps on making these tacos. That's where the problems came in and the goal is now that I feel like the enthusiasm within the staff is there and they're all learning it and they're getting faster. I mean, it was incredible progression today from the beginning to the end and how quickly they can get stuff done. So, I want to keep them on that pace and I think that if we can open we're just going to let's, let's pull the band aid off and let's go.

19:46 Ally Donnelly

Yeah, yeah. Will you take reservations?

Brian McLaughlin

We won't, and the reason being is we're just too small of a restaurant. If somebody is not here, they're late 15-minutes, because it's tacos and because the turnaround time for our food should be pretty quick. That 15 minutes is kind of crucial to us and turning a table. So I think the goal would be its first come first serve that we always can guarantee a packed house for ourselves. And with the fact that it's probably a 50-minute turnaround time for a table, I don't think it would be too, too bad of a wait. There's only 54 seats inside.

20:22 Ally Donnelly

That's just gonna ask you so, 54. So, 50 minute wait. You said five-0, right? The turnaround time?

Brian McLaughlin

Yeah, I think that's what a table would be sitting for the average time probably sitting for 50 to 75 minutes at most. Ticket time for tacos. Crispy tacos takes a little longer. But you're looking at 15 minutes for when you order to when you get the tacos.

Ally Donnelly

Okay.

Brian McLaughlin

Don’t quote me on that if it takes a little longer.

20:45 Ally Donnelly

So for people who come and there's a wait, will you be serving drinks outside, anything, you know, you can kind of prep people for?

Brian McLaughlin

Yeah, so as soon as we hav. So we just got signed out today for the jersey barriers and our outdoor patio. So the building commission came out, made sure that was okay. Now that we have that kind of all signed off, we'll set up our lights outside our poles, and make it give it more of an ambience so that we'll be able to have outdoor dining that's more enjoyable than sitting at a picnic bench.

Ally Donnelly

Nice

Let’s take a quick break to shout out our media partners the Hingham Anchor. You can check out photos of Brian and his team and sneak peaks inside the restaurant--it’s hinghamanchor.com. You can also read about Hingham’s amazing Little League team there, their 12U Williamsport Team just won the district’s first ever division championship. That means they are moving closer to representing Massachusetts in the Little League World Series and need to beat out 15 other teams around the state. Here’s the roster Brendan McCarthy, Charlie Levy, CJ Taylor, Cole Snowden, Dan Nichols, Grayson Bohane, Jack Serafini, Matthew Volpe, Michael Blanchard, Paul Donoghue, Rudy Preziosi, Thomas Sullivan, Will Jones and their awesome coaches. Go Get em boys! Okay, let’s get back to Brian and his favorite things on the menu.

Ally Donnelly

So, um, you know, I've noticed that your dad, you have three kids. I noticed you brought up kind of wanting to make sure you’re family friendly, kids welcome. Why is that?

22:16 Brian McLaughlin

You know, so before I got, before I was at Seabird, I was a stay at home dad for seven years and it definitely made its mark on me when I took my children places. There are certain places that I would walk into and I felt comfortable with and certain ones that I was I was kind of made to feel uncomfortable, like that my children weren't welcome. I think children should be allowed to come into places and I think that's up to the parents to kind of help them grow into adults and how to treat people in a restaurant, but also how to hold themselves and carry themselves in a restaurant. And as a parent of three beautiful daughters I'd love to help, help be that place for parents to come. I don't need to parent your children, but, I can create an atmosphere I think that they can be kids and still enjoy the atmosphere with the adult and the adults aren't annoyed because that's part of the culture. It’s a party here, it's a fiesta like, bring them in, let's have a good time. I've got plenty of things keep them occupied and the food they'll love it. I think it'd be fun.

Ally Donnelly

Awesome.

So I don't want to keep you too much in this hot car which I'm nervous I call 911 for.

Brian McLaughlin

I’m sweating, not going to lie.

Ally Donnelly

If you were crafting one meal, one person, what you're going to serve them - from what your offerings are - what is your favorite thing on the menu that someone should try?

23:33 Brian McLaughlin

Oh, I would definitely start off with the chips, trio sauces and guacamole. I think it's, our guacamole is unbeatable, it's incredible. I probably have to split a low take on queso which is our Mexican street corn with somebody else because we come to the house. And then for myself, I would order the carnitas crispy taco. I think, our carnitas is incredible, but the crispy taco. That's, that's the game changer here.

Ally Donnelly

It really is!

Brian McLaughlin

I agree, it really is.

Ally Donnelly

That's awesome. That's awesome. You seem to me a very chill kind of guy. I mean, you know, I've seen distress in your eyes a little bit, but you're very even keel. What intimidates you?

Brian McLaughlin

Um, my wife.

Ally Donnelly

I was just gonna say, besides your daughters.

Brian McLaughlin

My wife is intimidating. After that, I don't know. I mean, the fear of failure, I guess the only intimidation but it's that's also kind of what fuels the fire and makes me want to, you know, to succeed. So, there's not much that intimidates me except, I guess the disappointment of a customer. I mean, I think, my whole goal is to help provide an atmosphere that's enjoyable for other people and provide a product or fill a need and I think the intimidation, would, the only intimidation in mind that if I wasn't doing it right, if people weren't enjoying, if I couldn't correct it that way.

24:59 Ally Donnelly

So far from what you've seen are you happy?

Brian McLaughlin

I love it. I'm not gonna lie. I'm really in love with it. I think we hire based on personality and I just love spending my day with such joyful people so. So long as the product comes out right and people keep showing up. I'm a really happy man.

25:15 Ally Donnelly

Excellent. Brian McLaughlin, Locales Tacos y Tequila, I thank you very much.

Brian McLaughlin

Thank you Ally.

25:24 Ally Donnelly

Keeping up Brian’s attitude of gratitude, I want to thank my friend and fantastically talented producer-editor Kristin Keefe. Our interns, are Claudia Chiappa from Boston University and Hingham’s own Cameron Baker. Our website was designed by Donna Mavromates and her team at Mavro Creative. I’m Ally Donnelly. Thanks for listening. Talk to you soon!