Fifteen years after opening a food truck called District Taco that drew a following in Rosslyn, Osiris Hoil has 17 brick-and-mortar restaurants between Wayne, New Jersey, and Norfolk, Virginia. And he’s not done yet.
“I feel that District Taco can be 1,000 [or] 2,000 restaurants in the next 15, 20 years,” says Hoil, who lives in Arlington’s Yorktown neighborhood.
He has no reason to believe that’s not possible. He’s used to dreaming big and working hard.
Hoil came to the United States at age 17 from a small farm in Yucutan, Mexico, in 2000. He settled in Denver, got a restaurant job washing dishes and worked his way up to kitchen manager. He met his wife—then a waitress at the same restaurant—and together they moved to Arlington, where she had family, in 2006.
“I got a construction job that was paying very well,” Hoil says. “I was getting promoted until I became the superintendent for that commercial construction company. Then, unfortunately, I got laid off in 2008.”
That’s when Hoil met his mother-in-law’s next-door neighbor, Mark Wallace. Their kids started playing together while Hoil prepared dishes using recipes he learned from his mother. In July 2009, he and Wallace partnered up and rolled out the food truck.
At first, the truck’s menu was limited to two items per day—chicken and either beef or pork—although Hoil mixed up the spices and preparations to keep things interesting.
“When I grew up in Mexico, at like 8 o’clock in the morning, my mom would ask me what I want to eat that day. And I’d say, ‘I want to eat mole poblano’ or ‘I want to eat frijoles with pork,’ and she’d make that,” he says. “She had maybe seven recipes that she [rotated] so that’s the idea I had with the taco stand.”
Today, District Taco’s menu is larger, albeit still simple. Options include tacos, of course, but also burritos, quesadillas and salads. Diners can order house specials such as Fish Tacos Deluxe (featuring grilled wild Alaska pollock, pico de gallo and cabbage slaw) or build their own, selecting proteins such as chorizo, steak, chicken or plant-based Beyond meat to top with three types of salsa, cilantro, black beans, grilled corn and other add-ons.
The most popular menu items are pollo asado (chopped chicken) and carne asada (chopped steak). “We haven’t introduced new dishes in the restaurant in a long time,” Hoil says. “We have improved recipes to add more flavor. People keep asking for barbacoa, and that’s something that we might bring next year.”
His personal menu favorites? All of them. “This morning, I had the breakfast tacos with bacon, and if I go there in the afternoon, I’ll get chicken tacos with chorizo,” he says. “That’s what I eat all the time…. A lot of people think that Mexican food is bad for you because it has a lot of fat…and a lot of condiments. But we’re very clean with our food. We do cook with a lot of garlic because that’s how the Yucatan food is.”
He’s conscientious about sourcing sustainable products, such as cage-free brown eggs. “I feel like we have to do whatever we can to minimize the impact on Earth,” he says.
The restaurant industry can be tough to weather. The National Restaurant Association estimates a 20% success rate for all restaurants. CNBC reports that 60% of restaurants fail in their first year, and 80% fail within five years.
How has District Taco defied the odds? Hoil credits everyone involved. “I feel that without my business partner, without investors, without my team, I wouldn’t have what we have today,” he says.
Add to that his own entrepreneurial drive—not to mention the inspiration of his mother’s recipes.
“Since I was very young, I was selling newspapers, popsicles, flowers on the street—whatever it took to bring money into the family,” says Hoil, the youngest of three children. “I came to United States with just a little backpack. I feel this country has given me all the opportunity I would dream for. I know it has been 15 years [of District Taco], but this is just the beginning.”