Before moving from San Fernando to Concepcion De Buenos Aires in Jalisco, Mexico, Gabriel Barajas was born in San Fernando and lived there until he was 5 years old. Gabriel’s father Luis used to work for Graciano’s Tortillas. At a young age, he started helping his father in selling tortillas. He fell in love with his work and always wanted to be around his father all time. He realized very early the importance of hard work and providing comfort for his family.
When Gabriel was 11-12 years old, they moved to America- his dad got a cleaning job and his mom worked as a janitor. Nothing was better financially for their family in Mexico, but even though there was a lack of money, he had some of his best times there.
Gabriel never graduated high school, so when he left HS, he had responsibilities for which he had to work hard for a living. Gabriel got married to his wife Erica and they were blessed with a beautiful daughter, Sarahi. He moved in with his parents because they were evicted from their house and they were struggling financially at this point.
Gabriel’s father always had a positive attitude and held their family together even in the worst times. After a time, they opened a family business in San Fernando, a Mexican furniture store as per his dad’s idea. They started with little money but soon the business was doing good for Gabriel to buy his first house. He opened another store in Canoga Park but again he started facing more financial setbacks, then he started selling hotdogs outside the DMV, from which he saved enough to open up a restaurant, going back to his family’s roots of selling tortillas.
The idea hit him to call it “TacosWay”. He created the menu and took over a small restaurant on Roscoe and started selling his food. At first, people were not so interested and many told him it was a bad idea and he should move on with his family. Gabriel was working 16 hours a day, 7 days a week to make this work just because he wouldn’t give up on his goal of owning a restaurant chain.
He came up with different strategies for making it successful. He came up with a song which was written by his friend Eddie, for his restaurant. He also made a video, which was beneficial. Gabriel was generating buzz himself on Facebook and it helped the brand. People started coming from all different places to eat TacosWay. Soon he opened a second location which was half a mile away.
Gabriel Barajas is the founder and owner of ” QuieresTacosWay ” for 4 years now and he successfully opened 4 more restaurants. Over the years, he has learnt the importance of trusting in himself. Even there were lots of setbacks, his hard work, persistence, tough-mindedness, and gratitude is the reason for his success.
hoodcriticmagazine.com 