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B C B U S I N E S S . C A
M A R C H
2 0 24
Ryan Spong has helped launch not
only food tech companies but also
some of the province's most popular
brick-and-mortar eateries, like
Tacofi o and Superbaba.
COVID
forced a pause, but despite that
economic turbulence, the serial
entrepreneur is back to
biting off everything he
can chew
by Nathan Caddell
You've just opened
a Tacofino location
in Squamish. That's
your 10th, and you
have plans for three
more this year, in
Burnaby, White
Rock and Langford.
Why the aggressive
expansion now?
We were planning on expanding pre-
COVID—things were moving along. One
restaurant per year for five years or some-
thing like that. There were things we were
playing around with in terms of style, as
every Tacofino feels a little bit different.
But also figuring out if we were going to
expand beyond B.C.—we were thinking
about Toronto. Then the pandemic hit and
that all stopped.
Toronto-fino? Really?
Cord Jarvie from Meat and Bread had
helped build a couple of Tacofino locations,
Oasis and Ocho. He was back and forth to
Toronto. But then everything went
sideways and everybody went
into survival mode. Over the
last year or so it's felt like
we're on solid ground.
There are threats of a
recession, but what we
do is pretty accessible.
In the world of $45
duck sandwiches, we
have a $14 burrito—a
good lunch or dinner
for $20 with a drink.
We're feeling good
about the prod-
uct we're put-
ting out, and
relatively good
a b o u t t h e
world.
The
CONVERSATION
