Mixing old recipes with new concepts

Alicia Robinson

With 75,000 restaurants in California -- and more than 300 in Newport

Beach -- consumer choice seems to be the wave of the future in the

dining business.

Restaurateurs Ivan and Marco Calderon, who started the successful

Costa Mesa-based Taco Mesa chain, joined with new partner Rene

Fuentes to capitalize on customers’ hunger for options with Taco

Rosa, a new concept in Mexican restaurants that they opened Friday.

The restaurant fills the space in the Newport Hills shopping

center that was occupied by What’s Cooking Bistro for 27 years.

What’s Cooking closed last year when the Irvine Co. didn’t renew the

eatery’s lease because of a dispute over unpaid rent.

Taco Rosa will bridge the gap between fast service and sit-down

dining, with customers able to order food at the counter to take out

or eat in.

“We are the pioneers of the service style of the future, and we

feel that way because we are able to give the consumer a

quick-cuisine style of service or a captain [to wait on customers at

the table,]” Ivan Calderon said.

Enticements for diners will include free, fresh hors d’oeuvres

such as taquitos, and a chocolate fountain used in making desserts

will be displayed so customers can enjoy the aroma.

The menu also will feature an array of fresh salsas, churros made

to order, a different variety of rice every day and large meal

platters such as crab enchiladas with tequila-lime cream sauce and

fresh charbroiled tilapia marinated with chipotle and lime.

Guests at Taco Rosa can watch the line of chefs preparing food

behind a yellow-tiled counter or order a drink at the

horseshoe-shaped bar.

Bar specialties will include exotic drinks like hibiscus-infused

margaritas and trendy mojitos, rum drinks made with fresh fruit

juice.

One industry expert said the combination of service options and

fresh Mexican food, which has been a hot segment of the industry in

recent years, will likely be a successful one.

“It’s not unusual to see expansions in the Mexican food or Latin

food market, so yes, there’s room [for another Mexican restaurant,]”

said John Dunlap, president of the California Restaurant Assn.

Providing options allows a restaurant to serve younger customers,

who are more comfortable with cafeteria-style service, as well as

older people, who may want full-service dining, he said.

Combining different products and services has been a trend in the

market. As examples, Dunlap cited the Pizza Hut/Taco Bell combination

restaurants and dine-in establishments such as Outback Steakhouse and

Buca di Beppo offering full meals for carry-out.

“The customer is king, and so what the consumer wants, the

restaurant is going to bring it to them,” Dunlap said. “If they want

quick service they’re going to get it. If they want sit down dining

they’re going to get it.”

Because many customers will want quick in-and-out service, Taco

Rosa can be run with about 40 to 45 employees, fewer than if the

110-seat restaurant had all full-service dining, Ivan Calderon said.

Captains will be able to tell customers about the food and serve them

from start to finish, from getting their drinks and bringing their

food to busing the table when they leave.

Ivan Calderon said he expects other restaurants to follow the

trail he’s blazing.

“They are already going in that direction but not to the extent

that we are,” he said.

Taco Rosa, at 2632 San Miguel Road, Newport Beach, is open daily

for lunch and dinner and serves breakfast beginning at 8 a.m. on

Saturday and Sunday.

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers business, politics and the environment.

She may be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail at

alicia.robinson@latimes.com.