Tapia Brothers Co. has grown over the years, but it has never lost its family business feel, Vice President Erik Tapia says. “We have close contact with our customers and we feel like our employees are an extension of our family,” he says.

Based in Maywood, Calif., Tapia Brothers distributes beef, pork, seafood, poultry, produce, paper/disposables, janitorial, groceries and small wares products. The company’s roots go back to 1985, when Tapia’s uncle, Francisco, started Frankie’s Produce, his own produce company.

“My father, Raul, and my uncle Ramon started up with him,” the younger Tapia explains. “They started out of a produce truck and did door-to-door selling.”

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As the nation’s largest fast-food chains struggle to keep product costs low in a bid to recapture market share, Taco John’s sees an opportunity to lure increasingly discriminatory consumers. “I think the days of the dollar menu are probably over,” says Jeff Linville, CEO of the Mexican quick-serve chain. “And thank goodness, because I’ve never known a dollar menu to focus on quality.

“What we’ve decided to do is elevate our food beyond our competitors,” Linville says. The strategy has become especially important as outside forces are driving up costs. Beef prices are on the rise, eggs have become a premium product as the avian flu continues to kill thousands of chickens and states such as New York are setting higher minimum wages. Customers accustomed to paying $1.40 for a standard taco might not follow when restaurants are forced to hike the price to $3 to maintain the same profit margins. The quick-serve industry has little control over those market pressures, so Linville believes the answer is to justify those prices with better food. “People aren’t afraid to pay a little bit more as long as it’s a good-quality product,” he says. “If [a restaurant is] not in the quality game, you can see it. Brands are suffering.”

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There’s no craving quite like the craving for authentic Texas barbecue. But for most, the 14 hours it takes to properly smoke a brisket is too time-consuming and a spur-of-the-moment hunger-fueled trip to the Lone Star State too costly. In those times, it’s good to have the Sadler family close at hand.

Sadler’s Smokehouse is a family operated producer of brisket and barbecue meats for retailers and the foodservice industry. Its story started with family, friends and good flavor. The company says the first Sadler’s Smokehouse was a 50-sqaure-foot drive-up barbecue stand in Henderson, Texas, opened by Red Sadler in 1948. Although it had a popular local following, the company did not truly take off until 1961, when Harold Salder borrowed $1,000 to open his own smokehouse in Lufkin, Texas. The restaurant focused on replicating Red Sadler’s high-quality, pit-smoked brisket. 

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