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Innovating Mexican Cuisine: Costa Vida's Journey

·33 min·2 clips

Costa Vida rebuilt its condiment box after operators said the first version was hard to assemble.

1. The Restaurant Technology Guys Podcast episode focuses on Costa Vida’s off-premise, catering, and packaging decisions with Alan Beck. 2. Alan Beck is Costa Vida’s Director of Off-Premise and Catering, and host Jeremy Julian frames him as a LinkedIn-visible restaurant operator with a wide industry network. 3. The episode asks how Costa Vida keeps off-premise food quality high while growing in Texas, Arizona, Utah, and other markets. 4. Beck says Costa Vida opened its first store in 2003 in Layton, Utah, and now has 91 locations across 17 states and Canada. 5. He describes Costa Vida as a fresh Mexican grill that makes salsas, sauces, proteins, and specialty beverages in-house every day. 6. Beck says the brand’s innovation work is led by Kit Prestwich, Costa Vida’s VP of innovation, who owns menu and supply chain. 7. He says Prestwich and his team focus on LTOs such as chili verde and shrimp, then build marketing campaigns around them. 8. Beck explains that Costa Vida’s growth plan includes saturating Dallas, Houston, and Phoenix over the next few years. 9. He says off-premise only succeeds when operations is bought in, naming Josh Brinkerhoff, Shannon Valentine, and Brian Collins as key partners. 10. Beck says he works with corporate and franchise operators so new packaging, policies, and menu items are not rolled out “willy-nilly.” 11. He gives a packaging example where a condiment box solved missing side items but was too hard to build in busy stores. 12. Beck says the team took that feedback, rebuilt the box with the paper supplier, and made it easier to assemble. 13. He says the lesson was to work in busy, slow, and medium-volume stores before declaring a concept successful. 14. For catering, Beck says customers at Costa Vida want a build-your-own bar, and the brand has focused on that format for about 10 years. 15. He says catering works best when the menu is honest about its strengths, especially because sweet pork and sauced items do not suit every event type. 16. Beck says he would avoid marketing heavily to intimate wedding receptions because sauce on a white dress would create a bad outcome. 17. For off-premise, he says Costa Vida tests food in packaging and lets it sit for 15 to 30 minutes to see whether it stays acceptable. 18. He says the team deconstructed nachos by putting queso, sour cream, guacamole, and pico de gallo on the side to avoid a soggy result. 19. The conversation stays practical and operator-heavy, with Jeremy and Alan trading examples from stores, conferences, and packaging vendors. 20. Listeners who care about restaurant ops, catering, and packaging systems will get the most value; listeners wanting celebrity-style food talk may skip it.

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