We Started A Burrito Spot In A Home Depot Parking Lot – It Brings In $2.3 Million/Year

0:00 I think the location at The Home Depot was one of the biggest sells for us.

0:05 Just to have that built in foot traffic,

0:06 where you have hundreds and hundreds of people walking past the store every day.

0:10 So it enabled us to start and also gave us a lot

0:14 of promise to be able to at least sell hot dogs and cheeseburgers

0:17 and then whatever else we want to add on to that, to give

0:20 our own little spin on whether it be sandwiches or burritos.

0:24 I'm Lydia Holmes and I'm 36 years old.

0:27 I'm John Clark, I'm 33 years old.

0:29 And we started our business,

0:30 LJ's Lil' Café in a Home Depot parking lot in Orange County, California.

0:47 You have low overhead, low rent compared to an actual brick and mortar,

0:51 and you're right in front of a Home Depot.

0:53 And everyone has seen the Costco food court.

0:56 So we were like, we have to get in here.

1:02 The burrito has 25 tater tots that are fried extra crispy,

1:06 so every bite has a nice big crunch.

1:08 Next is ridiculous amount of cheese.

1:10 We put about a cup of cheese in every single burrito,

1:13 cause we felt like most breakfast burrito

1:15 these days were lacking that extra cheesiness.

1:22 Yes, that one actually is really good too.

1:25 Alrighty, and that's it for you?

1:27 Yes.

1:27 Okay.

1:28 Can I have your name?

1:30 Biggest expenses, food costs, of course, just like most restaurants.

1:34 We've been lucky that we haven't had any crazy out of nowhere expenses.

1:39 I mean, we have equipment we have to replace occasionally.

1:42 Yeah on the weekends, we're doing about 6 to 700 burritos a day.

1:53 So with that profit,

1:55 we pay off loans and we also reinvest a lot of it back into the business.

2:01 We also have tried to really take care of our team with some of that as well.

2:06 We just threw a very fun Christmas party for everyone and then,

2:10 you know, pay our bills.

2:26 I think restaurants have been a huge part of our lives and trying

2:30 new places and finding these hole

2:32 in the wall places or super extravagant places,

2:36 we would go home and try to make whatever we

2:39 had there and put our own little twist on it,

2:41 and it led into, hey, maybe we can do this one day.

2:45 I think we always knew, but it wasn't really a reality,

2:47 maybe till after Covid and then when we found the shed.

2:57 We did get the money to purchase the shed from a family loan.

3:01 So that we are very thankful for that they believed in our vision.

3:05 They are not charging us interest.

3:07 We are still paying it off.

3:09 We've just been slowly increasing the amount we pay off every month.

3:13 We opened LJ's in September of 2021,

3:17 hired my brothers actually, who are our two very first employees.

3:21 And then we had our son Jack in November of 2021, two months prematurely.

3:27 We stayed with my parents and my family just to get

3:31 all the help that we could get at that time.

3:33 We thought we were going to be more of a hot dog stand type place.

3:36 The breakfast burrito was on the original menu as well.

3:39 We had one breakfast burrito, just the OG.

3:48 In the beginning we were doing $2 to $300 a day in sales.

3:51 $150 of that may have came from Home Depot

3:54 employees coming out to get their lunch at the store.

4:01 A freelance writer came by.

4:03 He was in the area, wanted a breakfast burrito,

4:06 found us on Yelp with our 13 reviews,

4:09 decided to give us a try and he asked John,

4:12 actually, can I write about you guys?

4:14 And John said, sure.

4:15 A few weeks later, find out that it's for Eater LA,

4:19 and that completely changed the trajectory of our business overnight.

4:24 That's when we realized, okay, people want the breakfast burrito.

4:28 That Thursday, we probably did maybe $300 in sales.

4:31 After the Eater article came out that night on Friday,

4:34 I think immediately we hit our first $1,000 sales day.

4:37 And then I don't think we've done less than $1,000 sales day after that.

4:41 I got a phone call that day from my brother,

4:43 frantically asking me to come in and they needed help.

4:46 We were not expecting it.

4:48 I remember the first day it got crazy.

4:49 Yeah, that was— that was a fun, fun day.

4:52 Like up and up since then, so.

4:53 Our wait times on a Saturday at one point got to 2 to 3 hours.

4:58 We would take your cell phone number on our paper ticket.

5:00 And then as that ticket got towards the front of the line,

5:03 we would call that cell phone maybe ten minutes

5:05 before the order's about to be ready to get

5:07 them to come back to Home Depot from wherever

5:09 they were and then come pick up their order.

5:18 We're trying to softly cook like a soft

5:21 scrambled egg and create this really gentle omelet,

5:23 while we're also firing some hot beef on one side.

5:27 It would be a lot of grill scraping and cleaning,

5:29 and it would push burritos back.

5:31 The hood is only six feet in there, so we were limited.

5:34 It's not like we could go and get

5:36 a larger grill or throw another grill in there.

5:38 We had to work with what we had and we made the decision,

5:41 okay, we have to choose what people are coming for.

5:58 We did take out a somewhat traditional loan.

6:02 It was a bank loan, but it was through my grandparents.

6:04 They own a duplex and they were able to refinance on it.

6:08 That has set interest, monthly payments and we completely took on that loan.

6:13 They just helped us acquire it.

6:26 I think the big moment for me,

6:28 I was driving to work about six months after we opened our Orange location,

6:32 and I don't know what happened, but it just hit me.

6:34 We made it possible in this little shed in front of a Home Depot.

6:38 We felt like an actual storefront was a huge risk and test for us.

6:43 And that was the moment where I was like, this is it.

6:46 Like, we're good.

6:47 We've made it.

6:51 So this is the spicy.

6:53 It has the jalapeno in there too.

6:58 He handles more of vendors and communications with that, the equipment-ordering.

7:04 I'm more of HR, payroll, social media.

7:08 I'd say we both do R&D.

7:10 It's nice to have you know both of our opinions on things.

7:13 There's a lot of pros and there's some cons, obviously, you know,

7:16 like you might vent a little to your spouse

7:19 and then that's that and you move on with your night.

7:21 Whereas with us, you know,

7:23 we're talking about work till we go to bed at 11:00 at night.

7:27 But it's also really nice to be able to share this success

7:31 with the person that you love the most in the world.

7:46 Our burrito, when we put it on the menu, I think started around $8.75.

7:52 After the Eater article,

7:53 we realized our numbers aren't quite right and had to change some prices.

7:55 Slowly, the price has also been going up as the price of eggs has gone up,

7:59 the price of meat has gone up and the price of cheese has gone up.

8:17 The biggest challenges as we're scaling and opening new restaurants,

8:20 that we can't be there.

8:22 So trying to keep that, that consistency in every single restaurant,

8:25 making sure the burritos are all going out the same.

8:28 We'll never be able to step away.

8:30 It's fun, keeps us on our toes and we like being involved.

8:35 It's those little things like the customer telling you

8:38 that's the best burrito I've ever had in my life.

8:40 On those $200 sales days,

8:42 those are the comments that keep you going, keep you pushing.

8:46 If we could do it, anyone can do it.

8:47 We had no kitchen experience professionally,

8:51 no knowledge of how to run a business.

8:54 There was a lot of learning in the process

8:57 and growing from that and then finding some good help.

9:02 You can go through some hard times, but you're resilient.

9:05 It teaches you resilience and you keep going and, and you'll get there.