Restaurant business owner Enrique Chan Morales, of Tacos Frida, his mother, and brother each moved to Montreal from Oaxaca over the course of several years, almost a decade ago. When the restaurant where they worked started cutting back on their hours, they needed another way to survive. They found a small spot in the vibrant neighbourhood of Saint Henri.
"Tacos Frida was born out of necessity," Enrique remembers. "I started a very tiny restaurant with my brother, my uncle, and my mother. And we just started selling a couple tacos and that kind of took off." The family focuses on serving up straightforward, high-quality Oaxacan food, the way they've always eaten – favourites include tacos al Pastor and Cecina, a grilled, dry-aged beef served with Oaxacan cheese, guacamole, and radish.
Enrique is proud of the work his family has put toward their success – just showing up day after day and making quality food. They’ve even produced a cookbook of family recipes together, Cuisine Mexicaine: Les secrets de famille de Tacos Frida.
Tacos Frida shares Mexican culture and flavour with the Montreal community, where all customers are welcome at their "home"
Named for Frida Kahlo, whose paintings adorned Enrique's childhood home in Oaxaca, the restaurant's decor is inspired by the family's love of their home country.
"When you go to Mexico, it's just colourful and it's just right in your face. So we try to emulate that here at the restaurant," Enrique says. "When someone walks into Tacos Frida, I want them to feel that they are being invited to my home in Mexico."
And the local Montreal community has connected with the Morales family through Tacos Frida. "We've been here for eight years now, and we feel part of the neighbourhood. Saint Henri is very eclectic and diverse. We enjoy being at the heart of our community — it represents us in a certain way. We love being here."
For Enrique, cooking food is a "gesture of pure love" that brings everyone together
"When I was younger, I realized the power of food uniting people, bringing people together," Enrique says. "Whenever my grandmother cooked Cochinita Pibil, a dish from the Yucatan Peninsula, it had a power of putting everyone together, at least for a few hours. And for me, that was magical."
"I saw how cooking food was a gesture of pure love."
Enrique reproduces the same dynamic at the Tacos Frida shop alongside his mother, brother, and uncle. "We are cooking food with our family," he says. "Inviting people to join us for lunch or for dinner."
Their Saint Henri family of regulars continues to grow: "We have some long-standing customers that [have been coming] since their first dates as a couple. And they now have two or three kids. It's just funny how we have seen them growing with us."
Third-party deliveries make up almost 50% of Tacos Frida's sales
DoorDash orders are an essential part of Tacos Frida's successful restaurant business, representing up to half of their total restaurant sales at times.
"We love using DoorDash because we appreciate the human side of the company," Enrique says. "There are real human beings behind the company that we can talk to and they can understand our real problems at the restaurant and help us in solving them."
"DoorDash is our only delivery app."
By partnering with DoorDash, Tacos Frida has grown beyond their neighbourhood
DoorDash enables Tacos Frida to expand their reach beyond their beloved Saint Henri neighbourhood, and to provide a great customer experience.
"The feedback that we have been receiving from customers using DoorDash is really positive," Enrique says. "They're enjoying the experience, they enjoy how useful customer support is. So we're happy with that."
