Right Coast Taqueria opens in Mineola

Five years after the first Right Coast Taqueria opened in Deer Park, tacos are still at the center of the fast-casual menu. But partners Dave Preisler and Richard Zoob have re-imagined huge swaths of their business while growing it from one location to three plus a catering service.

“It’s been nonstop since we opened the doors today,” Preisler said during a brief lull between lunch and dinner on the first day of business at their new Mineola location. He gave his partner a wry grin. “Remember that first day in Deer Park? We’d turn around every time we heard a sound — is that someone coming in?”

The two met 30 years ago when both were working at Houlihan’s. Preisler moved on to Carrabba’s where he rose to general manager of the Smithtown store. Zoob took on corporate jobs at a succession of chains: Chili’s, Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, Outback Steakhouse. When they opened Right Coast Taqueria in 2018, it was meant to be the job that would take them to retirement. But they've learned a lot since then.

STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD

RIght Coast’s first menu offered a choice of four fillings (chicken, pork, shredded beef or steak) that could be had in tacos, burritos or bowls. Orders were filled, Chipotle-style, as the customer moved down the assembly line. “Business was going along OK,” Preisler recalled, “but we needed to figure out how to differentiate ourselves from that sea of sameness.” In 2019, they introduced the “big crunch” taco, in which a recommended daily dose of meat, lettuce, tomato, onion and sauce was piled into a fried, foot-wide flour tortilla. With the help of social media, it created a buzz. But the ball really started rolling with Preisler’s creation of the Mongolian beef taco: crispy beef tossed in a sweet soy glaze and nestled in a flour tortilla with chili-sriracha aioli, cabbage and scallions. “We introduced it as a special, and people went nuts. We added it to the menu,” he said.

In all, eight much-loved daily specials wound up dominating the regular menu. Mongolian beef was joined first by fish tacos made with tortilla-crusted Alaskan pollock with avocado ranch and mango salsa, then by trendy birria beef served with consommé, fried shrimp with sriracha aioli and avocado ranch slaw, al pastor pork gets pineapple salsa and salsa verde and more..

PRIORITIZE EFFICIENCY

Preisler and Zoob evetunallly jettisoned the build-your-own assembly line. “It was very inefficient,” Zoob said. “The person is making up their mind while they are ordering — ‘I’ll have the rice, no, maybe the beans.’ ” He noted that in 2018, wages were around $11 an hour; now they hover closer to $20. “With the cost of labor these days, we needed better efficiency to recapture our margins.”

Right Coast kept the open kitchen, but now the workstations are circular, limiting each cook’s movements to a maximum of 10 steps. “Where we once needed eight people, we now need six,” said Preisler. “It’s like an orchestra.”

REDEFINE 'RESTAURANT'

Eating, the two men learned, did not have to happen within the walls of their eatery. About five months before the pandemic, they introduced “taco boxes,” packaged kits that contain all the tortillas, fillings and garnishes needed to assemble a home meal for a family of four or a party of 50. They also launched a truck in 2021 that was initially stationed in Holbrook but quickly got diverted to handle catering customers all over the Island. The following year they introduced a second truck, in Ronkonkoma, that functions as a proper takeout restaurant with a full kitchen and enough room surrounding it for customers to bring their own lawn chairs. “These were both additional catapults for us,” said Zoob. “Frankly, the pandemic was great for us — between the boxes and the truck and the app, it was a perfect storm for success.”

EMBRACE TECHNOLOGY

During the pandemic, Right Coast stopped taking phone orders, relying instead on a phone app (also accessible via computer). This eliminated the position of phone-order taker while also reducing the number of mistakes. And, Preisler pointed out, “the app offers rewards, always suggests extra things to order, shows the consumer parts of the menu they might not see. A person answering the phone might do that — or might not. When we stopped taking phone orders, our sales actually increased.”

Now even the walk-in orders have gotten a tech upgrade with the installation (only in Mineola, for now) of an ordering kiosk. “The kids like to order that way," Zoob said. "Look, I could just say ‘I hate that they don’t talk to anyone’ … or I could install a kiosk so they don’t have to.”