♪♪ -♪ Maíz ♪ ♪ Dulce maíz ♪ ♪ Abundado ♪ ♪ Listo pa' la tierra cultivar ♪ ♪ Maíz ♪ ♪ Dulce raíz ♪ -To survive, the thing you need is you need people.

That's what you need.

Your community.

You need people around you.

If you're trying to survive, if you're trying to push people down or something to, like, get above, that doesn't work.

This is not about surviving between everybody.

This is like, how do we all have a good life?

That's how it is.

It's like we set a standard, but we bring everybody with it.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Are we making more salsa verde?

Porque... Like, we're at half.

We're halfway.

-¿Necesitas verde también?

Para ordenarlo.

-I mean, it's Thursday.

-It's not.

Tomorrow's Wednesday, but... -Wait.

What?

-Yeah.

Today's Tuesday.

-Since when?

-[ Laughs ] -Knowing someone like Xose and this being something that's so personal to us, I just felt like we can't lose 'cause we have a story, we have history.

He gives me a call.

He literally goes, "Let's do it.

Let's start Discada."

-He had no doubt about the business.

That was, like, kind of, like, the turning point to me.

I was just like, "Yeah, dude, I'm doing this with, like, the person that I trust the most."

On top of that, it's just something very personal for me.

It's something that is part of me.

Why wouldn't I choose something that, like, always brought me happiness instead of doing something that just paid me?

-I was just thrilled.

I was just like, "Finally," because this was like seven, ten years, like, of me wanting to do it.

Even when I was in South America, my game plan was to go back and start Discada.

-We should start... -Yeah, I'm working on it.

-...get dirty... -I was just so excited.

I went and put down a deposit that day.

I already had all the connections for food trailers.

I even went and got it permitted through the city because I didn't want that moment to be a fleeting moment where he changed his mind.

So I did remember purposely acting very fast.

-Ahí van ya en... -It's done, sitting there, ready to open, but he still hadn't moved here.

And I was like, "Get here.

Like, we need to start cooking."

You know?

-Yeah.

So we only do one kind of taco.

It's called discada.

It's a mixture of beef, pork, and vegetables, and we let it marinate for 24 hours.

Then we slowly roast them in a tractor plow disc, and we do serve them in the small tortilla.

So they're taquitos.

And the orders come in increments of 3, 5, or 8.

-Yeah, we'll just do 16.

-16?

I gotcha.

And I'm gonna give you both salsas -- they're on the side -- so you can try them, alright, guys?

-The day he got here, it was just grind mode every single day.

-When we started, it was terrible.

-It was a mess.

-Terrible.

-So inefficient.

Like... -Yeah, yeah.

-There's no blueprint for discada, so we were just figuring it out.

-Completed ticket 57.

-The first few months, we would be excited if we did like $200 in sales, but I think within the first six months, like, we had our first blogger, I was like, "See?

It's starting."

And then that first year, we were, like, the spot that all the bloggers and, like, chefs were going to.

-I remember pulling up to Discada for the first time.

They only serve one taco, so that's when I thought, "This has got to be a great taco, right?"

The first time eating that taco, I felt like such a fool for not going there for so long because I was like, "This taco has everything you want in it."

It is -- has a umami bomb.

It is -- There's salt.

There's fat.

There's acid.

There's texture.

Eating that taco, Xose explaining to me -- Like, he gave me the whole spiel, and I was like, "Okay, like, there's a storyline behind this.

Cool."

Like, I love he's giving me a little -- little brief history of kind of him and who he is on a plate.

That, for me, started my relationship with Xose and Tony.

They were Eastside homies and neighbors.

That love of first bite of eating that discada taco was something that changed our whole path forever.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Once we opened Cuantos, I originally only opened at night because, you know, street tacos were, you know -- you want to eat those at night.

One of the first people that actually stopped by Cuantos was Jae Kim, the owner of Chi'Lantro Barbecue.

He shared us on his social media.

That's when Tony came by.

I didn't know that he was one of the owners of Discada.

-I was the first one out of the Mafia to go there and try it.

Xose was always like, "Nobody does it like Mexico City.

Like, there's no tacos here.

Like, they're all good, but Mexico City has a very specific style."

Like, using the choricera and cooking everything together.

I called up Edgar and Xose right away, and I was like, "I found the truck.

I found it."

-It was actually the night of our soft opening.

Myself and Sara were looking for a little bite to eat.

I just remember seeing Beto, like, with the aché and just... Choo-choo-choo-choo-choo-choo, choo-choo-choo.

I just remember -- I was like, "Damn.

Alright.

This guy is doing it the right way."

It was, like, instant friendship from that first bite.

-Nixta opened up the following week.

And, yeah, them and their crew would all come by to Cuantos.

-It was, like, the spot to go for, you know, the industry as a whole and for especially taquieros.

-The fun part about going to a place like Cuantos Tacos, especially back then, where it was still a little bit of, like, the secret spot where you knew it was too good and it was about to get big, but you were in before, you know?

Like, let's enjoy it for what it is now because you knew that it wasn't gonna be like that forever.

-Yeah, I remember going there and seeing the guys from Discada there, seeing Edgar and Sara from Nixta there.

It's almost like those, like, gossip mags like Us Weekly.

It's like, "Oh, look.

It's Jake Gyllenhaal eating a smoothie."

You know, like -- I'm like -- It's like I'm seeing -- You're seeing this who's who of chefs, right, that all are dedicated to this craft of being, you know, taqueros.

-It was like party at the location.

Like, it just started spreading like wildfire.

I didn't see it happening for some time, a couple of years or so, but seeing it all happen like barely months in was a big wave that I'm still kind of riding.

At that same time, everybody else don't really see all of the struggle.

♪♪ [ Indistinct conversations ] -♪ Ella me cuida ♪ ♪ Del paso en falso que da mi vida ♪ -When we went to Xochimilco for our wedding day, we did a ceremony in Mexico City just with our family.

There was like 15 people in total.

[ Laughter ] So we just wanted to kind of redo it with friends and... -Being amongst a lot of people that we love that happen to be in our inner circle in some way, shape, or form.

♪♪ -Being out in Xochimilco is always, for me, an experience.

The energy, when you think about sitting there on that water, like, that is, like, where civilization started for, you know, the Aztecs, in that water.

I just feel very honored to be there.

Got to go and have a day out with people that we love.

-La pareja detrás del mostrador con su sonrisa y su gran amor nos comparte su comida deliciosa con sazón y generosidad prodigiosa.

[ Cheers and laughter ] Conocidos por su gran corazón en su puesto de tacos, unión y pasión.

Mezclan culturas con tanta destreza y nos invitan a probar su grandeza.

[ Cheers and laughter ] Así que vengan todos a probar los tacos de esta pareja sin par que nos muestran que la unión hace la fuerza y que el amor no tiene fronteras.

[ Cheers ] -iArriba!

Abajo.

Al centro.

Pa' adentro.

-Whoo!

♪♪ -The great thing about traveling with a group that size is that you can have these mini interactions.

You know, in starting Nixta, we had an overwhelming amount of friends who were a part of the project who put the pieces together to make it come to life.

-The importance, I feel like, for, like, having community, it is essential to an identity of a restaurant.

-♪ Volver, volver ♪ ♪ Volver ♪ ♪♪ -We like to align ourselves with people that share the same values as us and people that we truly believe that care about making Austin just a better place.

[ Indistinct conversations ] -For me, it just boils down to... it's so lonely without community.

Why not lean into that and be supportive of one another?

-Every single person here, there's so many people here that we love and admire.

We are lucky enough to call you all our friends, but, really, we love you all, and thank you all for being a part of this.

After having a couple months of great success with opening a restaurant, things definitely didn't end up being so sunny and beautiful.

Like, the path we thought we were going to have, it wasn't very linear at all.

A lot of curves and interactions and things that, you know, life threw at us that we weren't expecting.

♪♪ I think, for me, when I think of survival, like, this struggle mentality comes into my mind.

I think that resilience comes from being a child of an immigrant, you know?

You saw what our parents were willing to go through and what they did to get us to where they're at, so we're like, "If they were able to do it, not even were able to speak the language or do any of that, like, we can do it, too."

-As a kid, when I was in school, I was in class, and I get called to the principal's office.

I see my sisters are there, and my brother and my mom, and she's like, "Hey, I have something to show you all."

-It was around like 10:00 that my boss came to me and he said, "Ghamar, I had a phone call, and they told me your house was on fire."

I said, "What?

What happened?"

-That was actually one of the really toughest time in our life, you know, the house burned down.

-Driving up to it, you can, like, smell it before you can see it, and then you see, like, dark plumes.

Half of the house is still on fire.

The other half of the house is, like, all ash.

I was happy that no one from my family was in there at the time, but we didn't have anything from the house left.

They recouped what they could, but, yeah, it was all gone.

Our school found out about it, like, immediately.

Even that night, they were like, "Hey, we are putting you guys in a hotel."

They did, like, a clothing and food drive for us.

They put us in temporary housing that they covered, and it was, like, really overwhelming because you're like -- You just know that they're there for you.

[ Mariachi band playing ] It always brings out the best in people, those situations, like, wanting to do as much as they can without asking for anything in return.

Those moments stay with you of, like, your responsibilities to others, right?

Like, life is so pointless if you're not helping others.

-♪ Quiere bailar el mariachi loco ♪ ♪♪ ♪ El mariachi loco quiere bailar ♪ ♪ El mariachi loco quiere bailar ♪ -I had gotten word that my grandma was moved to a home and then she had gotten sick, and that's when she had passed.

That was a time whenever I was, like, heavily, you know, trying to get Cuantos going and being there all the time, barely being at home and, sadly and unfortunately, you know, not being as around my family as much as I would have wanted to be.

After my grandmother passed, my aunt... she fell ill, as well.

Less than a month after being hospitalized, that's when, you know, she passed.

My mom was really close with my tía...as well, so I really saw that taking a toll on her.

Even before my tía...had passed, my mom was already diagnosed with Parkinson's.

The Parkinson's started accelerating a lot faster, and that's when the doctor said she needs, like, complete 24/7 someone carrying after her.

That's still tough because -- You know, thankfully, my mom is still here with us right now, but seeing that person that almost everybody would come to for help... now needing all this help, it's, uh...

It's -- It's hard to see, you know?

That's when I started thinking about... "What's this all about?"

♪♪ ♪♪ The first time I went to Mexico City, I was so hungry to want to learn what this was all about.

And then now it's a great place to clear your mind.

So, my mom was diagnosed with Parkinson's.

♪♪ Now we're just trying to make her feel as much love and as much comfortable as possible with the help of our little angels -- our Amelia, my niece Sofía, my niece Elena -- so she knows how much she means to all of us.

-[ Beep ] -Hello?

-Where are you?

-I'm in Mexico City.

Remember?

You want to see?

You see it?

-Yeah.

-[ Laughs ] -I'll call you in a little bit before you go to sleep so we can say a prayer, okay?

-Okay.

-I love you.

-I love you!

Mwah!

-Mwah.

Mexico City, it's like a jolt of energy, for sure.

It's a great place to get away and, like, be submerged with the mecca of where our culture came from.

-Quédate con el cambio.

-Muchas gracias.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Growing up, from when I was a baby until I was 10, we would always spend our full summers in Iran.

♪♪ It had been 13 years since I had visited, and obviously Edgar had never been.

And we went with my dad, as well, which was the first time I had traveled with him as an adult.

The intention was to see a large cross-section of the country, one, for R&D purposes for a future restaurant we want to do.

But more than that, I think it was having Edgar experience those things for the first time, as well.

-[ Speaking indistinctly ] -Merci.

-Merci!

-[ Laughs ] -Sorry.

First day in Iran.

-Yes.

-This guy right here.

-Yes.

-This trip was really, really special because we got to go and see a lot of the country, starting in the north in the mountains and then going to the south in the islands... Tehran was sort of like the second area that my family is really from.

It was kind of our home base.

-Yeah, it's like a New York City of Iran, essentially.

-Yeah.

-Like, that was the only place in Iran where there was other kinds of food.

Like, we were able to find Mexican food there.

We found a taqueria in the middle of Iran.

-They were making birria.

-They were mkaing birria.

It wasn't very good birria, but it was birria.

We are here at the bread shop, checking out the local bread of the scene.

-Edgar got to go to multiple bread shops and go around and see them making it and see them how -- you know, how they're placing it in the ovens, really ask those questions and, like, literally get your hands into everything, so that was special for me to see.

I thought it was important for him.

-Being, like, in the fire, being inside of, like, the bakeries, like, that's what really, like, gave me this, like, better grasp on, like, the culture and what Iranian food is.

It is very unique.

-It just felt like a lot of those pieces were coming together.

And opening this next restaurant, I'm gonna feel a lot better about it.

-[ Speaking indistinctly ] Wow.

Mmm!

-Assalamu alaikum.

-Mmm!

-My dad is someone who is, like, at the heart of it, an entrepreneur.

Opened up a diner spot called Friendly's, and he's kind of like -- definitely can't work for anyone else.

So I think he figured that out early on.

And in thinking about the next restaurant, what we want to call it, it's like, do we want to do an homage to something?

We happened to come up on this place in Iran.

Everything is, like, translated in English, and it was "Friendly's Café."

I was like, "Is this a sign?"

This would definitely be, like, an undertaking, not impossible.

-The kids was there all the time.

That was a teaching moment for the kids, too, and not just put them to work, you know?

I just want them to understand, you know, how the business runs.

And that's where actually Sara's business mind come from.

-I was, to be honest, pretty young.

My siblings and I would go there and work.

I don't know financially how well it was doing because I was a child, but I'm assuming that, like, things didn't really work out since he bounced to another career.

Survival in the restaurant business -- there are so many other things you have to think about because it's no longer about your own survival.

-[ Speaking indistinctly ] -And developing thatrelationship with, you know, Discada, with Xose and Anthony, with Beto at Cuantos, they were a big part of, you know, our original food community.

Like, we were -- We've never opened a restaurant before.

We weren't really in the restaurant community before.

-I was very, very hands-on and involved in the opening of Nixta.

And I saw people that were far more experienced than me do it the way that they do it, as opposed to the way that I did it, which was failing a bunch.

-The efficiency that Sara provides, it's great.

There's always, like, a better way to doing things.

She was just very good at finding what that thing was.

-We became solid friends before the Taco Mafia was even an idea.

Just kind of came into fruition, just having similar interests and a similar mind-set, wanting to do things, you know, to push the taco culture and also, like, give back to the community at the same time and not rely on anybody but ourselves.

-I think the one shared goal that the Taco Mafia has together is just building community through tacos and this beautiful thing of, like, brown people that are in business together.

-We're competitive, but together for the city, for us, for the customers, for the people, with each one of our backstories is just ingrained to us in different ways.

We've been given so much at such a fast rate and so early on that, naturally, like, for me, it just feels like I just have to give back.

♪♪ -I remember one night me and Xose wrapped up and we decided to go out for some drinks on E 6th.

We went up Airport, urned on 12th Street.

Before Nixta came up, we just started seeing, like, a bush of fire in the garbage can, and we were just like, "Oh.

What's going on?"

Once we got there, it started getting really, like, high up.

-I remember Beto calling me, and then he called Sara, and I was like, "Okay.

Something must be going on."

-Like, "Dude, I'm not joking with you.

Like, your trash can is on fire."

And Edgar was like, "What?"

-And then as I hear that, I hear fire trucks rolling through.

I'm like, "Oh, my God!

There is definitely a fire."

-Me and Xose were out there trying to move the can, but it was kind of stuck, and then the fire department came right away and they started, you know, going to town on it.

-So we pull up.

They are putting out the fire.

And then out of the bushes comes Beto.

I'm like, "Whoa, Beto!

What are you doing?

Like, how -- Why are you here?

What happened?"

-Right behind that dumpster was their cage where they housed their propane tanks.

-Dude, I'm so glad you just drove by.

Like, we just got here like 10 minutes ago, dude.

-50 propane tanks feet away from where this fire was going on.

And if it would have continued down the path, our whole business would have gone up in smoke.

That was one of those moments of reassurance for myself where I was like, "Damn.

These guys are down.

Like, these guys got our back."

-What tied us together is that we're gonna help each other as much as we can.

When I was in high school, my left lung collapsed because of Marfan syndrome.

It's a tissue disorder that literally affects everything from our bones, skin, cardiovascular.

I was diagnosed at 9 years old, along with my older sisters, and that's hereditary.

So most of my aunts and uncles and cousins have Marfan's, as well.

It gets passed down, and it came from my mom's side of the family.

That condition has kind of, in a way, affected, you know, my whole family's way of making our living and our way of life.

-¿Quisieras que te dé un informe de algún cuchillo en especial?

-Sí, ¿no?

De hecho, en el puesto que tengo allá, la primera vez que vine, me llevé como unos -- casi una docena de puros de hachas.

-Artesanales.

-Sí, de Zarate.

What it comes to with the artery is that in time with strain and pressure, excessive lifting, that vein expands bigger and faster than normal.

And then eventually, you know, once you hit a certain age and a certain threshold, you know, the aorta will have to be either replaced or repaired if possible.

♪♪ Being diagnosed with Marfan syndrome at an early age, I knew that the surgery was gonna happen.

♪♪ A lot of my aunts and uncles have had this open chest surgery, but, like, later on -- in their 30s, early 40s.

So I was kind of banking and waiting on that.

But in 2020, when I went to Mexico City again after Cuantos had already been opened up and so forth, I came back, and at that time, I was, you know, not really taking care of myself.

So a lot of factors were causing me to have some health issues, and, you know, pancreatitis was kind of what I had.

And I was hospitalized for that, and I was in the ICU.

♪♪ -Que te vaya bien.

-Dale la mano.

-Que te vaya bien.

Gracias.

-Muchas gracias.

-A ustedes.

-Muchas gracias.

-Dios los bendiga.

Gracias.

They know that, you know, if someone has any kind of heart conditions or something like Marfan syndrome, whether you're hospitalized for a broken foot or something like that, they'll still do scans on your heart just to make sure that things are okay.

So, in a way, pancreatitis happening then probably saved my life.

-Buenas, ¿cómo está?

-Buenos días.

-¿A cómo son la orden por taco?

-24 pesos.

I went in for that, but a cardiologist walked in a couple days later saying that, "Hey, your artery's gonna rupture."

♪♪ -¿Qué dice...?

Ah, ¿tus zapatos son de qué?

¿De Dragonball?

That's when, you know, Cuantos was, like, taking off, and, you know, I felt like I was, you know, hitting a stride in a way, but whenever I heard that news, I was like, "Damn.

Alright.

I know what this...

I know what this entails."

-Gracias por ayudarle a tu mamá.

Sigue ayudándole.

La cuidas.

Ella te ha cuidado a ti.

Aquí tienes.

Quédate con el cambio.

Nos vemos.

Con cuidado.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪