From left, desserts help drive sales at Rustika Cafe & Bakery, which also serves lunch items such as empanadas and is the brainchild of founder Francis Reznick.
Rustika Cafe and Bakery, a four-unit restaurant chain in Houston, is a family affair. Francis Reznick founded the business in 1994 as an extension of her culinary talents. Her son, Marco, led the charge for initial expansion, opening the restaurant’s second location, and is now managing a broader franchising effort.
The bakery came first. The Reznick family moved from Mexico City to Houston in the 1990s, and “when we got there, I said I should do something,” said Francis, who leveraged her baking skills and wealth of family recipes to start the business, working out of her home and delivering to local restaurants and grocery stores. Her first clients? A Carrabba’s in Sugar Land, Texas, and a few mom-and-pop shops, she said.
The business grew quickly by word of mouth, and its client roster expanded to include hotels, casinos and grocery stores, as well as Houston landmarks such as Taste of Texas. She brought the bakery to a storefront in 2001, and relocated to a larger spot a few years later. The decision to open a restaurant came almost by accident, Francis explained. The new location was already set up as a restaurant, and she figured she might as well take advantage of the layout.
“We started including our heritage in our food,” she said. Born in Mexico City to a Jewish family, that heritage is evident across the menu, which pairs dishes such as tacos and tostadas with matzo ball soup and club sandwiches.
The culinary logic is simple. “Things that when I grew up I liked, I incorporated,” she said. She’s expanded the menu to include trendy dishes such as avocado toast, but said she always adds a “Rustika flare.” Customers can add lox or grilled queso to their avocado toast.
Customer favorites include chilaquiles, a dish of fried tortillas, cooked in salsa and topped with onion, sour cream and a protein, as well as empanadas. On the bakery side, Francis said her most popular cakes are white chocolate raspberry, tres leches with strawberries and cream, and triple chocolate. Marco, now CEO of the company, estimated the original location in West University Place earns 40 percent of its revenue from custom cakes and 60 percent of revenue comes from baked goods and desserts.
Sales skew toward breakfast and lunch at the franchised locations. Marco estimated the two franchised restaurants do 50 to 60 percent of sales from those food items, while the remainder comes from dessert sales.
He joined the family business when he was 16 and started working the closing shift after school. “For my parents, it was always about the kids,” Marco said, recalling family dinners and the long hours they pulled to put him and two older sisters through private school. He saw the closing shift as a way to make his parents’ lives easier, as well as a good way to save for his first car.
Some of Marco’s favorite memories are of watching his mom bake and cook, he said. He recalled the particular joy of watching her make his favorite almond butter cookies. “She would make them and I would eat them all,” he laughed.
He only got more involved from there. Marco stayed local for college, studying economics at the University of Houston’s downtown campus, and led the charge to open a second location during his third year there. After cutting his teeth as a manager, he spearheaded the company’s franchising effort.
Rather than find franchisees that know how to bake, Marco said they use their original location in West U as a commissary kitchen, preparing all the doughs and icings ahead of time, and shipping them to the other locations to be baked and decorated on-site.
“I’ve always wanted to have more stores,” said Marco, but “it’s very tough to add more locations when it’s family-owned.” Expansion is capital intensive, and it’s difficult to replicate the magic of having a family owner in the restaurant. He sees franchising with owner-operators as a way to scale that experience.
“We’re looking for people that can be as passionate about the Rustika Cafe and Bakery concept as we are,” said Marco. Other qualifications include managerial talent, sales skills and customer service experience.
The cost to open a Rustika restaurant ranges from $235,000 to $410,000, and the royalty fee is 7 percent.