Cantina Laredo was founded at a time when Tex-Mex cuisine was gaining popularity across the U.S. in the 1980s. The restaurant’s founder, Gilbert Cuellar Jr., created the brand with a subsequent mission—to deliver authentic and refined Mexican food north of the border. Though the brand was eventually acquired by Consolidated Restaurant Operations—which operates seven other full-service restaurants—Cantina Laredo never lost sight of Cuellar Jr.’s original vision.
David Wierman, now president of operations and a franchise consultant for Cantina Laredo, initially joined the brand in 1986 to pay his way through graduate school by waiting tables and bartending. In his current role, he leads and supports a team of general managers and their respective restaurant teams. “We keep evolving the food and we’re doing twists on traditional Mexican food offerings,” Wierman says.
He adds, “the best example on our menu would probably be the ahi tuna tacos, so you’re taking really traditional raw ingredients that you’d find in Mexican food, a crispy corn tortilla shell, guacamole, pickled onions, cilantro, jicama, and we’re doing a twist with that—we put ginger in the jicama, chipotle pepper in the aioli, and sushi-grade ahi tuna, and we mix it with a Hawaiian poke sauce.”
Forty-one years later, Cantina Laredo still prides itself on its modern approach to upscale Mexican dining, elevating traditional dishes with unique twists. This concept also flows over to the bar program, with a large selection of tequilas and mezcals. “We’re always trying to focus on what the next cutting-edge flavor profile will be,” Wierman says, “so we have [cocktails and drinks with] passionfruit, mango, watermelon, pineapple, and blood orange. We’re always trying to push the envelope on menu ideation.”
With dozens of tequila brands available at every location, Cantina Laredo also hosts a quarterly tequila dinner. With a set four-course menu, fresh seafood and vegetables are paired with multiple tequila offerings. Seasonality plays a large role in this program, with a rotating list of fresh and local fruit and vegetable menu items depending on the month.
Today, Cantina Laredo has 13 total restaurants, spread out across Texas, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, Missouri, and Virginia. The brand began franchising in 2003, and is split almost evenly between corporate-owned and franchisee-operated locations, with seven of the former and six of the latter. The first franchised location of Cantina Laredo opened that same year in Fort Myers, Florida, and is still in operation.
Similar to Wierman’s journey, Mike Flippo—now president of franchise operations—joined Cantina Laredo in its youth, starting out as a unit-level kitchen manager in 1988. He quickly moved up to general manager, then regional manager, then shifted to the franchising side of the industry in 1996, although the franchise program began seven years later.
After Flippo and the team were first approached by someone interested in operating a franchise location in Florida, they spent years fine-tuning their process so that it could be more easily replicable. Flippo proposed they “give it a shot and watch it very closely,” he recalls. “I saw the opportunity and I thought that there was a pretty good chance for expansion if we were successful, so I was very excited to make that switch over.”
In choosing a location, Flippo says, “we’ve been successful in downtowns and we’ve been successful in suburban markets. I think the big thing we look for is some good ingress and egress, daytime traffic, nighttime family traffic.” He also highlights the importance of the retailers near the locations, saying, “You want to be in a market where the people that are shopping [at nearby stores] are our clientele that are looking for this modern Mexican, just not your normal Tex-Mex restaurant.”
Wierman asserts that the key to maintaining consistency across all their locations is the people that make up Cantina Laredo. “We’ve got some really great people, from the kitchen to the front of the house to the managers that have been with the company a really long time,” Wierman says. “They are brand advocates and are passionate about Cantina Laredo—they love the food, they love the service, they love the regulars that come in. That really helps us maintain a high level of operations, just treating people the right way.”
“And they keep us honest,” Bill Watson, vice president of marketing, adds. “If they see us making a boneheaded mistake, either an item or a price hike, they tell us because they know us personally and they hold us to account.” When asked what year he joined Cantina Laredo, Watson refers to himself as a “newbie.” By newbie, he has been with the brand for 23 years, but he is the newest member of senior management in the organization.
Operating through COVID was rough for Cantina Laredo; it suffered several closures at previously popular locations that “evaporated right in front of us during the pandemic,” says Watson. “But, we’re back, we’re doing well. We have strong restaurants operating now, and we feel good about where we are.”
Recently, franchising has been the focus of the company’s future growth. Three new franchised locations have opened since 2021. In these markets where diners expect a higher-quality meal at a medium pricepoint, Watson notes that the bar menu aspect of Cantina Laredo may be polarizing to some groups, such as families in southern states. However, the main demographic of their diners are families coming in for a meal.
To promote their bar options, the team at Cantina Laredo hosts differently themed happy hour specials depending on the day of the week. For example, Thursday is “Ladies’ Night,” with discounted margaritas for women. Wierman says that the happy hour program is “a great way to bring in different groups and provide a really great opportunity for people to get together, celebrate, and catch up.”
The brand’s newest location is inside Atlanta’s bustling Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Terminal T, marking Cantina Laredo’s first location in the state of Georgia. Owned and operated by franchisee Guillermo Perales of Georgia Airport Concessions, the space is 4,850 square feet and seats 134 guests.
Airport dining locations are competitive and highly sought after in today’s market, says Flippo, as they tend to perform very well. Cantina Laredo already has locations in Terminals D and B within Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, which opened in 2006 and 2015, respectively. In 2013, the brand opened in Dallas Love Field Airport, which has become the highest volume franchised unit systemwide.
Already, the new unit in Atlanta seems to be a hit. “ATL is generating tremendous weekly sales volumes and is experiencing weekly sales increase over the previous weeks as more travelers through ATL are learning about it,” Flippo says. “We have been fortunate to partner with experienced airport operators who don’t try and reinvent the wheel. They recognize the value of the Cantina Laredo brand and focus their management teams on executing the brand standards.”
