Quesadilla Gorilla has four locations in California and another about to open this month.
Miguel Reyes isn’t afraid to take risks.
In 2013, after just three months of dating, Reyes asked his then-girlfriend, Mikayla, to lend him the money to buy a pizza-by-the-slice restaurant from their boss.
“She was very much like, ‘No, don’t do it. Bad idea. We have good-paying jobs,’” recalled Reyes, the founder and CEO of Quesadilla Gorilla. “I was like, well, I’m going to do it, and I also need to borrow your money to do it. … She was crazy enough to say yes and drained out her savings that she saved up for the last three years to purchase the location from our previous boss.”
Their goal was to run the place better than the former owner and modernize the restaurant by adding wings and making the space more inviting, Reyes said.
Then Reyes had a new idea: “We should do quesadillas.” He wanted to use his and her families’ salsa recipes, which he called “liquid gold.”
“I’m a sauce guy. Everything I eat has to have sauce,” Reyes said.
The pair switched gears to create Quesadilla Gorilla, “and never looked back,” he said.
The menu is simplistic, with the option to build your own quesadilla or choose one of the brand’s recipes. There’s the “Evan Boling,” with cilantro lime chicken, bacon, jalapenos and white cheese; or the classic, with pork chile verde, black beans, Spanish rice and white cheese. (Evan Boling is Reyes’ barber who named the restaurant.)
Quesadilla Gorilla’s locations have beer or full bars as well.
Aside from serving tasty quesadillas, the California-based brand wants to build connections with customers through food, Reyes said.
“I grew up in poverty, parents divorced, just not the best upbringing. So when it comes to food, for me, it was like the good memories that I had as a child was always revolved around food,” he said. “Even despite the circumstances of a broken family, or whatever it might be, I have these memories that food can bring people together, no matter what.”
To get the restaurant off the ground, the couple “hustled” for about two years, working around the clock at their restaurant jobs, on top of running Quesadilla Gorilla. Reyes didn’t have a paycheck coming in from Quesadilla Gorilla during that time.
“It got to the point where it’s like, hey, we need to go all in and I need to take a salary from here,” Reyes said.
Mikayla, left, and Miguel Reyes with their children
In 2017, the Reyeses opened two more locations, where Reyes said “we fumbled for a bit.” They realized they didn’t have the training and operation procedures in place to adequately run all three stores. In fact, they shut down one of the locations about 18 months after it opened.
“We made a lot of mistakes, learned a lot in that process,” Reyes said.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020 and Quesadilla Gorilla “ended up thriving” due to its existing grab-and-go pick-up model already in place. The original location was just 400 square feet, so it wasn’t designed for dine-in seating and didn’t need to drastically change its business model from California pandemic regulations.
Today, Quesadilla Gorilla has four stores open, with another one opening this month. For now, the brand is sticking with expanding along the West Coast.
The initial investment required to open a Quesadilla Gorilla franchise ranges from $417,351 to $772,152. The royalty fee is 6 percent of gross sales and the marketing fee is 1 percent.
There’s certainly no shortage of Mexican-inspired franchises—especially in California. Del Taco, a California staple with about 600 units, did nearly $1 billion in sales in 2023. Taco Bell did nearly $16 million with more than 7,400 restaurants worldwide. On the smaller side, there’s Surcheros Fresh Mex, based in Georgia, and Bubbakoo’s Burritos in New Jersey.
Working with your spouse isn’t for the faint of heart, but Reyes said he doesn’t see a downside to someone working with their romantic partner. He and his wife treat their homes like they treat their restaurants, with a “closing” to-do list every evening.
“We work as a team every night to close our household,” Reyes said. “It’s been fun to work with my best friend and spread what Quesadilla Gorilla is.”