Today we’d like to introduce you to Gerardo De Anda.

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Hi Gerardo, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?

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I graduated high school and college in San Antonio, UTSA, and have grown to love the city and consider it my hometown. After I graduated, I wanted to pursue the corporate world and work my way up the ranks. After working for a couple of years, relocation multiple times, and becoming the youngest director in a Fortune 500 company I realized that I was destined for a more entrepreneurial path.

A friend of mine had a coffee shop in the Northside San Antonio in which he no longer wanted to operate and was looking for someone to take over the lease. This is where you could say I had my lightbulb moment. If you know me at all, I am very decisive and my ideas grow like weeds in my brand and grow to reality. I lined up my mom and two sisters and told them I have decided to quit my job and open up a Spanish restaurant and asked who would join me. I had always wanted a family business, so I found this to be the perfect opportunity to take the risk. Vanessa, my oldest sister agreed to embark on the journey with me.

I set expectations high, told myself that I was going to create a business, not a restaurant, by this I mean, I set a strategic growth plan from day one. One of the goals being opening up a second location within 1 year of opening the first location if all went well. So, we set forth pretending to be restauranteurs and relying on others, and listening to others’ expertise and advice to form our own strategy. One thing I learned early on throughout my career is that the most powerful tool in business and is life is to learn how to listen. We took it all in, and are very grateful to have such amazing people around us helping us with this crazy idea we had.

I would literally build it out myself since I also own a custom home construction company, I know a bit or two about construction so I figured I do the work personally, all while holding my day job in my corporate job, I actually did not quit until the week I opened the restaurant. I would do construction work from 12 am to 5 am since I could only work when the restaurant next door was closed, then wake up in the morning for my day job. It was an entire adventure and has many stories on how we did it, but, we did it, we opened.

After about six months, I decided to start looking for a second location, my sister was about to have a baby so she had her hands full so my best friend and I, Thomas Hogan decided to partner up and open the second location and a speakeasy mixology bar in the basement in St. Paul square. After about a year we started working on the second concept, Cuishe. We opened two locations, during the pandemic, one month apart.

Crazy, yes. did it work, so far? Yes! We have opened up Gusto Group, which is our corporate holding. Gusto’s group focuses on experiences. We want all our concepts to provide unique immersive experiencing, not just-food. we want to provide our guests with a mini-vacation while visiting our restaurants or bars.

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I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?

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I guess this boils down to how one perceives things, I do not linger on problems but focus on solutions. By definition? No. It has not been a smooth road, but I have chosen to perceive it all smoothly.

In our first restaurant a lot of the struggles consisted of construction struggles, it was a mess getting a vent hood ductwork through the second story, which was currently occupied. The size of the kitchen was tiny, after all, it was meant for a coffee shop, not a restaurant. Actually, we are currently in the works of moving toro stone oak to a bigger location in the same plaza.

Another struggle was the mental challenge of everyone scaring you to go into this business, there is of course the typical, most restaurants fail within six months, no one wants Spanish food in SA, stone oak is too high in rent, etc.

Of course, the challenge of not being new to the business and not knowing what is right or wrong, this you have to overcome by having the confidence that you are genially and honestly trying your best and both your staff and your guests will feel this vibe and understand any mistakes or errors you may make.

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Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?

I think I went over everything in the first question, let me know if you want me to expand on something specific. I would like to focus on Gusto Group as we are currently trying to market it to be known as the parent company of our restaurants. We are opening up in Cantera and Dallas next year, and Miami in 2023.

We also opened Mucho Gusto, which will focus on giving back to the community while specializing in hospitality-related initiatives.

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Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?

‍Solving problems. I am one of those individuals that could never quite figure out what to specialize in or what to study during college, I did not have a specific enough talent where I could identify my calling. After going through the game of life, I realize that my special falls in problem-solving. Nothing makes me happier than hearing a problem and brainstorming a solution.

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Tequila makes me happy too.