Doug Pires: Hey, hey, and welcome to Stopping By. I'm Doug Pires, Senior Vice President and Financial Advisor with Pinnacle Wealth Partners at UBS Financial.
Jess DeBear: And I'm Jess DeBear, associate director and senior wealth strategy associate, also with Pinnacle Wealth Partners. We are located in Mount Laurel, New Jersey and can be reached at pwp@ubs.com.
Doug Pires: Our team's mission, our just cause, is to bring financial literacy and competency to the masses. We've been fortunate to meet interesting people along the way. They have compelling life stories about overcoming adversity and seeking their passions. Hopefully, you'll see that our guests are just like you. So Jess, who's stopping by today?
Jess DeBear: Doug, today we are chatting with Daniel McLaughlin, owner of Mission Taqueria. He is not affiliated with UBS Financial Incorporated, and his views are his own.
Doug Pires: All right. Looking forward to hearing more about Daniel's mission. Get it? Mission? On with the show.
Jess DeBear: Can we reveal to our listeners that there's a baby on the way?
Doug Pires: Yep. There's a baby. Number three is on the way. We don't know a boy or girl.
Jess DeBear: What are we feeling, Doug?
Doug Pires: We're thinking pink. We're thinking pink.
Jess DeBear: What's in the guts? What's in mommy's guts? What does she think?
Doug Pires: She feels awful. She thinks it's the same awful. I think it's a worse awful.
Jess DeBear: Oh, it's a worse awful. Okay.
Doug Pires: Yeah. I think that makes it a good thing. It means it's like, oh, this is a different one this time around.
Jess DeBear: It's not a walk in the park, man.
Doug Pires: I'll tell you what, my contribution and her contribution, it's-
Jess DeBear: Your contribution.
Doug Pires: It's not fair.
Jess DeBear: Your microscopic contribution?
Doug Pires: Hey, wait, I want to talk about this. Philadelphia, this is the apropos of our guest today.
Jess DeBear: I do know. I know exactly what you're going to say. Michelin?
Doug Pires: Yeah, we got Michelin star. We're on the map. We're on the map.
Jess DeBear: We're on the map, baby. How about that? Do you have to apply? Or based on our guest's reels, you have to be invited to apply. Is that correct? You have to be invited? And what gets you on the invitation list? Is it still tied to the Michelin company? We don't know.
Doug Pires: The family. It's the family. So I would be curious, how do they pay the people that are ranking for the guide?
Jess DeBear: Yeah. What is the pay to play here, man? Is there a pay to play here?
Doug Pires: I'm sure there is.
Jess DeBear: Should we ask our guy?
Doug Pires: Absolutely.
Jess DeBear: How do you know him? Sorry. [inaudible 00:02:32].
Doug Pires: I know Daniel, a friend of mine was in the restaurant world. He did photography and websites and stuff like that. And when I was divorced looking for things to do on a regular basis, he would invite me out to eat at all these things. So I met him through that person, and then as you'll see, he's an awesome dude.
Jess DeBear: Our man is here.
Doug Pires: There he is.
Jess DeBear: Hello.
Daniel McLaughlin: How are we? How are we?
Jess DeBear: How are you?
Doug Pires: Good to see you.
Jess DeBear: I'm having a flash. I'm a little nervous. I got to be honest.
Daniel McLaughlin: Why?
Jess DeBear: Because I've been following you and I'm like-
Daniel McLaughlin: This is such a big deal star.
Jess DeBear: You totally are.
Daniel McLaughlin: I know. Not like those four star admirals you've been having on recently. They're just liked-
Jess DeBear: It's exactly the same. Come on.
Daniel McLaughlin: Liked guests. Yeah.
Jess DeBear: Doug, we have a listener, I think.
Doug Pires: I know. We have somebody at least.
Jess DeBear: Hello, sir.
Daniel McLaughlin: Hello. Nice to meet you, Jessica.
Jess DeBear: Nice to meet you, sir.
Doug Pires: All right. Let's get our introduction and get rolling here. If you spent any time in Philadelphia's center city, you've probably felt the energy radiating from Mission Taqueria. Colorful walls, incredible tacos, a buzzing atmosphere, and a sense of fun that feels both local and fresh. Behind that experience is Daniel McLaughlin, restaurateur, visionary, and co-founder of a space that is as much about community as it is about cuisine. Daniel has spent years crafting not only memorable food, but an identity that captures what it means to gather, celebrate, and connect. Today, we're going to talk to Daniel about his journey in the restaurant industry, how Mission has become a Philly favorite, one of my favorites, and the powerful role social media plays in shaping how restaurants build relationships with their guests. Get ready for a conversation about creativity, resilience, and the business of keeping people connected, one taco at a time.
Daniel McLaughlin, thanks for stopping by.
Daniel McLaughlin: Thanks for having me, friends Excited to be here.
Doug Pires: So our listeners know, you couldn't see the dancing going on behind the scenes in this intro, so I really zeroed in focus.
Daniel McLaughlin: I like having a hype man, Doug. I need you to stick with me more often in my day-to-day life.
Doug Pires: Daniel, I'm a fan. I don't know... I'm sure you have many talents. I think you found your calling. So let's talk about it. How'd you fall into the restaurant and hospitality world?
Daniel McLaughlin: It was kind of a circuitous path. I first came to Philly from the DC area to go to school here, Drexel for design, actually went to school for architecture. That was my first life in Philly. That led to a tiny offshoot in furniture design and construction, and then got into nutrition. But all the while doing this, I was almost always waiting tables for extra cash as I was doing main hustles. I always had restaurants as a side hustle, and then they ended up switching places. And we opened, I managed Oyster House for years, and then my business partner, Sam, is the third generation of that restaurant. And he and I together opened Mission upstairs almost 10 years ago.
Doug Pires: You were basically in the same block for the last 15 years of your life.
Daniel McLaughlin: Yeah. And our space, Mission's space used to be Nottingham Brewery, which I imagine-
Doug Pires: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Jess DeBear: Yeah.
Daniel McLaughlin: ... you've stopped in back in the day and they had their own thing going for 15 years. But it's funny that this address specifically has played a large role in my life in Philadelphia.
Doug Pires: So all right. So with all that background, architecture, design, all this, you go to school, you got this education, and then you make a pivot to the restaurant world. What was the moment where you're like, all right, I'm doing this?
Daniel McLaughlin: Well, I think, I don't know how many architects you know in your personal life, but it's like I think I loved the design, the study of design, the practice of design more so than I enjoyed the practice of architecture and working in a firm. And Doug knows me a little more than you do, Jessica, but just anybody who does know me knows that I'm a very animated personality. I'm definitely a people person. I'm an extrovert. And it just became evident that office life really wasn't suited to me. So the things I got from part-time work in restaurants started to fulfill me more than any full-time role I had in another field. And then I just realized, oh, I'm actually really good at this. And oh, this is also a career path. But it's definitely an industry that everybody clutches their pearls a little bit when you say you're going to open a restaurant.
Jess DeBear: Yeah. So building on that, in terms of how hard it can be, and if you're looking back, what has been one of the biggest lessons or surprises you've learned since opening?
Daniel McLaughlin: Well, our business happens to involve a lot of human beings, both as employees and as customers, but it is the people that really keep this type of work interesting to me. It's the thing that drives me. I'm just a people person. And I think I've earned a lot of honorary degrees after running a restaurant for 10 years, but the people are the biggest surprise. Managing people is definitely, I think, the hardest learning curve for operating a restaurant. And even though I was the general manager of a restaurant previously, when you take on the owner-operator role, there's just the added financial pressure that comes with it.
And there's a different level of expectation you set for yourself, and then you hold others accountable to that. One of the interview questions I like to ask when I'm hiring someone new for the restaurant is, what are you like in the weeds? And being in the weeds is the restaurant terminology for when you're just so busy, you can't even think straight or pull your head above the clouds. And how people operate in moments of stress is really telling of who they are.
Jess DeBear: And when you ask that weeds question, is there a weed response where you're like, that person needs to work for me?
Daniel McLaughlin: The thing I always want to hear is that you ask for help. I think a lot of places in the restaurant world, if you are asking for help, it means you're out of control or you've lost control of your section.
Jess DeBear: You can't handle it. Can't hack it.
Daniel McLaughlin: You can't handle it. But I think when we hire people from other places, we have to unlearn them of that behavior because we want them to ask for help. We want you to know that we don't see that as a negative. We see that as a positive.
Jess DeBear: Let's talk about building your Mission brand. Tell us, how would you describe the vision behind Mission Taqueria in your own words?
Daniel McLaughlin: Well, Mission itself is a reference to a lot of things. Mission is a calling. It's a vocation, which this restaurant has certainly become for me. My business partner lived in San Francisco for years, so it refers back to the Mission District in San Francisco, which was the largely Mexican neighborhood that's in that town. But it's also a place of reverence. It's another name for a church, so a place you come to for commune. And so I like that it plays on all that, but that it also implies a sense of purpose. We are not just a restaurant. I think we're a community hub. I think we are an important collaborator that reaches beyond just food specifically, like working with other artists, designers, musicians, performers. So that was always kind of built into what we wanted our space to be and our vibe to be. And I'm glad that we've lived up to that mission.
Doug Pires: My first intro to you was through Tacolab. And I thought it was such a... I love business capitalism. How did that Tacolab... Explain it to our listeners what that taco lab idea was and how it came about.
Daniel McLaughlin: Sure. Tacolab, if you as a listener can visualize the word as T-A-C-O-L-A-B, which even my employees who worked many of them didn't realize that it's a taco collab with another restaurant.
Jess DeBear: It is? I just wrote it down. It totally is.
Daniel McLaughlin: Yeah. But it was just an idea I had of like, because it's a taqueria, so there's only so fancy we can get with our food. And you employ chefs who are creative in their own right. And after overexposure to the Food Network, everybody wants to do something fancy and pull out their tweezers and get a chance to do something a little more artful than we could get away with on the day-to-day. So that's when I had this idea of starting the Tacolab series to work with other chefs of varying degrees of execution, but different types of cuisine that would host a dinner with us for one night at the restaurant where we would have a collaborative menu between our taco style and their whatever it was style. And they were super successful. I feel like we were one of the first to the collab space. They were super competitive. They would sell out in under a minute. We were working with Marc Vetri, Michael Solomonov, Nok Suntaranon. It was like we've worked with pretty much every great big deal chef in Philly. And we ultimately did 23 of them before we retired the series.
Doug Pires: You're getting exposure to people that might not be there. They're coming for that chef, then they meet you.
Daniel McLaughlin: It was great for that reason too, because it would bring... The Vetri customer, believe it or not, because not regularly, there's not much overlap in that Venn diagram in our two restaurants. But it's one of those moments where we always hosted. So it was cool that their clientele would see and hear about the event and would come to our spot and see it likely for the first time. But it was great exposure. It was great press. People still ask if we will bring them back, and the absolute hard answer is no. I honestly roll my eyes a little bit anytime I see a collab mentioned at this point, just because I'm like, I want something new. I want something different.
Jess DeBear: Yeah. Plus I would imagine it's a lot of work to coordinate.
Daniel McLaughlin: Yeah.
Doug Pires: I think it's interesting to point out, because Jess and I were just talking about this, and I didn't know this. You're not a chef. You're not a chef. I think of restaurateurs, everybody must be a chef, but then I think about, well, Stephen Starr wasn't a chef, right? Or is not a chef.
Daniel McLaughlin: You're not alone. It's true.
Doug Pires: And sometimes head coaches get into trouble because they're not calling the defense or the offense. And what do you do if you're not doing that? How do you feel about that?
Daniel McLaughlin: I wonder if there will be a shift in my tenure in the restaurant industry from back of house to front of house. I did just post a video because the Michelin Awards were here two days ago about just sitting in that audience and just hearing the word chef over and over, "Chef, chef, chef, chef, chef, chef, chef." And three of the chefs that won stars all thanked their wives. The Inquirer even wrote an article about it. There is someone else running the show while you're in the back cooking, and that person largely does not get awards or credit. I am at peace with that. I don't have any need for that, but everyone's first question when I say that I own a restaurant is like, "Oh, are you a chef?"
Nope, but I do everything else for the chefs to make sure they have what they need, to make sure they can produce our products consistently. And I'm grateful to say that we have an excellent chef team now, but I think they work now, there's three of them and they work as a triumvirate instead of as a one telling the other two what to do, and it works way better.
Jess DeBear: Can I ask a question? I'm going off script. So let's talk-
Doug Pires: This is her thing, Daniel.
Daniel McLaughlin: No questions during this interview, Jessica.
Jess DeBear: God damn it. Can we talk about this Michelin situation? Okay. So what is the deal? You have to be invited. Is that correct? You have to be invited.
Daniel McLaughlin: Mm-hmm.
Jess DeBear: Okay. How do you get on the invite list?
Daniel McLaughlin: That's the thing. It's not like the Oscars where there's a list of published nominees going into the award ceremony. Being invited is the suggestion that you've been nominated so that they keep the invite list very secretive, and even also anonymous. All of the reviewers are anonymous. They are paid, though how much they are paid is not clear, but it's a mysterious game.
Jess DeBear: But in general, restaurateurs don't know how this game works. People don't really know the ins and outs of the game. The Michelin people know this.
Daniel McLaughlin: Correct. And this is a little bit newer to the US market. Michelin was founded in 1900 in France for French restaurants, and then it expanded to all of Europe. And then it eventually got to the US, I don't remember what year, but this is the first year that Philly has ever had it. I think anybody who didn't get what they wanted now has something to strive for. Three-star taqueria, here we come.
Jess DeBear: So when we're talking taqueria, how do you have a balance between staying true to your authentic Mexican flavors whilst keeping the menu fresh and creative?
Daniel McLaughlin: I always say that it's like a modern taqueria that uses traditional methods, which is true. We make all the masa ourselves. We make the tortillas by hand, from scratch every day. So I think that is an important component of any taqueria worth its salt. We also have a wood grill for almost everything that goes on to the tacos, so I think there is that. But then the other components of what goes on the tacos have little bits of a twist. But I think because we're going for more of a California modern American version of it, that we base our tradition in the things that are important to representing that cuisine while putting little twists on it that differentiate us from more of the traditional Mexican restaurants that are in South Philly and actually throughout Philly, because we have such a deep Mexican connection in our food scene here.
I mean, we get such positive reviews even from people who are looking to hate. I think up here, it's more like, I'm from Texas, I'm from LA. I go to Mexico all the time. How good are your tacos going to be? And we get such cred for how good ours are. It's just like, it's hard to be braggadocious when you're not one of those Michelin-rated places, but I love our spot. It's so good.
Doug Pires: So in addition to the food part, there's the other part that I feel like you really take effort to curate, like the art, the design. So if you were to say out of 100%, how do you sort of figure that, the importance of each, the food versus the vibe?
Daniel McLaughlin: For me, especially rounding into our 10th year, it's like, what is there to say about a 10-year-old taqueria that hasn't already been said? And how do you refer back to yourself and promote your business without relying on tropes or trying to pretend you're something you're not? So it's like we don't have the chef to promote. We don't have awards to promote, so my greater interest is in promoting ourselves through partnerships with other artists and collabs, but not in the way we used to do collabs, but more interesting public events that will draw attention to us and bring business, hopefully, but are just things that are inspiring, keep us in the zeitgeist of the Philly food scene, but I'm just not interested in doing anything that's been done before. Because we are this unique space, we have a great central location, we have a favorable price point. You can dress it up or dress it down. It can be so many things. And I'm really trying to play with the range of what those things can be.
Doug Pires: So that kind of leads to a lot of entrepreneurial things you have to consider, right? I'm sure there were learning experience when you're kind of incorporating a team. What do you think are the tips that you found of maintaining positivity? You went through COVID. To me, surviving that as a restaurateur is impossible. You had so much to change, so much to do. How did you keep morale up? And then tell us about some of those difficult decisions you had to make through that time.
Daniel McLaughlin: That's something I still list as one of my greatest achievements is how my creativity helped get us through COVID, because Mission is on a second floor, for anybody who hasn't been there before. So when the world was gradually reopening and testing the idea of how we function restaurants in this pandemic world, everything was outside, but because we didn't have claim to any sidewalk, we couldn't have a sidewalk cafe and we couldn't even technically apply for a permit because we had no street frontage. So I worked on a relationship with the parking garage across the street whose business was also down because no one was commuting into work anymore. And they allowed us to use 13 parking spaces on their lower level to move our whole restaurant across the street and into the first floor of their parking garage.
Jess DeBear: Get out of here.
Daniel McLaughlin: And so we were able to reopen six weeks after we closed in the middle of March.
Jess DeBear: So wait, so were you like, "How are we going to get out there? I'm going to check in with these parking people and see if they'll let us use your space." You were just like, "I'm going to for it."
Daniel McLaughlin: Yeah. It's like, well, it was a lot of work, but I think it is a good example of why it's important to be a good neighbor. It's helpful to have that relationship to build off of. But then my design mind kicked in where we didn't just put folding tables into parking spaces. We had made a whole vibe. We made a fake restaurant called Sansom Street Surf Club, and we put beach backdrops along the whole thing so you couldn't see the rest of the garage. So when you went in, it looked like fake beach. And then we had Klip Collective light it. They do all the Making Time parties. We had proper sound. We had ocean waves and music out there. We were serving drinks and pineapple and coconuts.
Jess DeBear: That's so great.
Daniel McLaughlin: It was awesome. We had a fully operable restaurant outside, but inside.
Jess DeBear: But not. Yeah.
Daniel McLaughlin: But not. Yeah. So it was a victory for sure. And I'm super grateful to that company for letting us use the space.
Jess DeBear: That's amazing.
Daniel McLaughlin: There were inspections, of course, but it was just like, they were like, "This feels wrong, but why is it wrong?"
Jess DeBear: But we can't find anything wrong with it.
Daniel McLaughlin: Yeah, exactly. There's not technically anything wrong.
Doug Pires: When you're thinking about these things and you're doing all this stuff, a lot of it is instinct, right? I'm sure you've done things that were sort of against the general consensus, or what do you use to say, "We're going to try this."
Daniel McLaughlin: That is a big part of it, honestly. There's just that je ne sais quoi of the intangible, what is it? We're doing this event tonight that was just an idea. When I first proposed it to my staff, they were like, "What on earth are you thinking?"
Jess DeBear: Tell us what the event is.
Daniel McLaughlin: Thank you, Jessica. I put this idea out into the world last week where we're offering an event, a free dinner for 10 people, but there are rules. You have to come by yourself. You're not allowed to use your phone at all throughout the event. And while it's $0 to participate, it will cost you 50 bucks if you bail. And so we put this out into the world last week and got an enormous social media response. The video that I made promoting the event got 38,000 views, and then we got almost a thousand entries from that for 10 seats. That event is tonight. We'll see how awkward this feels.
Jess DeBear: It's going to be great.
Daniel McLaughlin: It's going to be great.
Jess DeBear: It's going to be so great.
Daniel McLaughlin: I'm going to be hosting and coordinating, and it's going to be great. But everyone is equal parts excited, but anxious.
Jess DeBear: It's such a social experiment. It's fantastic.
Daniel McLaughlin: Right. I know. Thank you. I'm really thrilled with the idea and how much response it's gotten, but it's all just instinct. It's just like, I don't know where that idea came from, but it just popped into my head. And after talking my staff into it, ultimately, we're doing it tonight and I think it's going to be great.
Jess DeBear: So great.
Doug Pires: Social media. So let's talk about that.
Jess DeBear: Let's talk about that.
Doug Pires: So you started the thing, I just love this. For our listeners, on Instagram, you start the series, So You Want to Open a Restaurant. And each little story is about different aspects. One, you take us on a tour of a walk-in freezer, which was fascinating.
Jess DeBear: So cool.
Doug Pires: How about the menu? You talk about the different paper-
Daniel McLaughlin: Menu.
Doug Pires: ... and how we printed it, how we picked it, and all the changes.
Daniel McLaughlin: Yeah. I know. Yeah.
Doug Pires: How much to pay for rent. All these things you are embodying. So tell us, what inspired this? And our listeners, you just got to see this.
Daniel McLaughlin: It was through watching another friend of mine who's an expert in a different field start a channel on TikTok that got a lot of followers. So the idea occurred to me because there is no guidebook for how to open a restaurant. You can go to a traditional restaurant school, you can go to the CIA or whatever, but most people are getting into it because they don't fit into another traditional business model. So they're like, "I can cook food. I know my family's tradition around this particular thing. I'm going to create a business around that product and support my life and my family." And I love that about the restaurant industry.
So if I can create a channel that helps spare anyone trying to do this some time, some energy, some money, that's the reward in itself. But it's been super rewarding. I've only been doing it a month and a half, but getting great feedback both online and in person and from other restaurateur friends. I'm glad that I'm enjoying the process because it's a lot of work, but it's been awesome. And I'm looking forward to what more I can do with it and hopefully helping people.
Jess DeBear: As someone who can't or won't open a restaurant, I love watching it.
Daniel McLaughlin: No? I haven't talked you into it yet?
Jess DeBear: Well, I mean, maybe it's down the road, I'm just... Doug's got me under lock and key. Okay?
Doug Pires: Absolutely. She's under contrac.t
Jess DeBear: I'm just saying. I feel like when I watch it, it's a walking advertisement, obviously, right? So as someone who likes order, going into the cooler and seeing the beautiful rows of meat, arranged meats and shrimp and chicken-
Daniel McLaughlin: It's satisfying, right?
Jess DeBear: I'm like... I just think it's just fantastic. So how do you decide what Reels you're going to make?
Daniel McLaughlin: Well, before I started, I made a list, like a Google Doc of almost a hundred ideas and just wrote, "And then there's this, and then there's this, and then there's this." And as I'm making them, I'm coming up with more ideas, or the bigger ideas have to be broken down because it's hard to make a video that's over three minutes, because people have no attention span.
Jess DeBear: So were there any ideas or any Reels that you put out there and you were like, "This is going to hit. People want to hear this. People are definitely going to want to know about this." And then they were like, and are you like, "What the hell?"
Daniel McLaughlin: Yeah. It's gone both ways. I went through this whole editing process of how we make our chips, and tortilla chips in our restaurant are free, free technically, but it takes so much effort to make them and we make them fresh every day. So I made this cute video that was to the tune of working in a gold mine. It was timed to the music and it repeated and it kept getting bigger and bigger and zooming out and zooming out. And I was like, "This is going to be my viral video. It's going to be great."
Jess DeBear: This is the one, baby.
Daniel McLaughlin: And then this is putting me on the map, and then a couple hundred people saw it. But then I made the one about the menu design, which I thought, who's going to care about paper? And it has 20,000 views. It's like the people who I know who do this better than me, they're like, "Just keep making it and the algorithm will tell you what it wants from you." I realize it's the educational content that people want. They want to learn about the menu. They want to learn about anything behind the scenes, kitchen.
Jess DeBear: How the sausage gets made, man.
Doug Pires: True.
Daniel McLaughlin: Yeah. We haven't even made the sausage yet. We're just walking you through an empty kitchen.
Jess DeBear: I know.
Daniel McLaughlin: But it's been interesting and fun.
Doug Pires: All right. So let's talk about my favorite topic, sports. I'm a big sports guy and you did a piece talking about how maybe you perhaps weren't the biggest Philadelphia sports fan before, but you have to know about it. So tell us about how that can impact your business.
Daniel McLaughlin: Well, I mean, you can't live in Philly and not be a sports fan. It's like automatic. It's so much of our identity. But because Mission is not a sports bar, you just have to pay attention to the calendar because especially when the Phillies get in the playoffs like they've done for the last 10 years, it's like you just have to know what night the games are. And it's like, oh, they're every night. That's awesome. You just have to be in tune with whatever's happening. But then there's boosts of the Eagles parade happens and then you are jamming and you're just getting crushed because everyone in the world, the whole city shuts down and you're benefiting from it. So it's like, while I am not the biggest sports fan in general, I'm a big Philly fan and I want our teams to do well. It always brings me joy to see our city so happy. And there are very few things that do that universally like one of our teams winning.
Jess DeBear: Hey man, who inspires you in the restaurant world?
Daniel McLaughlin: One of my first gigs here was with Stephen Starr, who I opened Pod Restaurant back in 2000.
Jess DeBear: Stop it.
Daniel McLaughlin: Yep, my first year in college.
Jess DeBear: When Doug was in diapers? Get out of here.
Doug Pires: No, when I was in college-
Daniel McLaughlin: When Doug was in diapers. [inaudible 00:27:32].
Doug Pires: ... I went to that restaurant. I remember it opening up.
Daniel McLaughlin: Yeah. I mean, it was a cool restaurant.
Jess DeBear: Yes. Stop it.
Daniel McLaughlin: It was so good, and the design was killer. And at the time, it was only Stephen's fifth restaurant. And now 25 years later, he has 43 restaurants. So while his scale is so not my scale, it's inspiring to see how he's grown, how he's also not a chef, like we talked about, Doug, in the beginning, he is just like a merchant of vibe, and that's impressive. That's really hard to do. I struggle to do it just at our one location and making it consistent among all your employees. But then when you're employing thousands of people instead of dozens of people, it's inspiring to think of how they even scale that. But it's very impressive to me.
Jess DeBear: Right. I want to know-
Doug Pires: All right. Let's go to our... We've got signature questions.
Jess DeBear: I know, but I have to know your favorite taco order. What's your favorite taco, dude?
Daniel McLaughlin: So we honestly have the best carnitas anywhere. It's hard to brag about that because that's one of those tacos that every taqueria has, but ours are truly the best. Our fish tacos, our mahi-mahi are amazing. Everyone loves our grilled shrimp tacos. Our birria is perfect, our barbacoa is perfect, and we have 11 types of tacos, so you can't mess up. And it's hard for me as the taco parent to play favorites, but if you're coming and you only have one meal with us, you should get the carnitas.
Doug Pires: All right. So we have these signature questions that we like to ask everybody, and so I'll give them to you both. What is your earliest memory involving money? And then, what does money mean to you?
Daniel McLaughlin: Money just to me means options. It's good to have it. It's hard to need it and want it and not have it. I think the best thing money affords you is options. My earliest memory of money was working at my very first job of life, which was at a soft serve ice cream place that was family-owned and you got paid in cash in a little envelope. And I remember seeing one of my older siblings do this, but I remember ironing my money and stacking it in neat little piles because it was the first money I ever earned. And I was like, I think it was my older brother I saw doing that and I was like, "That's baller. I'm going to do that."
Jess DeBear: You ironed your money.
Daniel McLaughlin: I don't know why, but it was like-
Jess DeBear: It makes perfect sense looking at your cooler that you would iron money.
Daniel McLaughlin: Yes, I know. The meticulous organized nature has been in me from an early age. But I'm grateful that they've never been obsessed by money or with money. A lot of the decisions I'm making, like I'm hosting a dinner tonight for 10 people for free. That's not a thing that more money-driven restaurateurs I think would even entertain. And I think part of the reason that Mission has been successful is because we're not a money-grubbing restaurant that's charging as much as they could get away with for being a Center City restaurant. Our margaritas are still cheap. Our tacos are still affordable. We want to keep it something that everyone has access to and doesn't feel like a splurge, especially in 2025, '26 where money feels very different than it did a few years ago.
Jess DeBear: Daniel, you are adorable and delightful. I just love you.
Daniel McLaughlin: Thank you, Jessica.
Jess DeBear: I just love you. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Daniel McLaughlin: My pleasure. Honestly.
Jess DeBear: Your story, you are a fantastic example of how vision, consistency, community can just transform a restaurant into something absolutely special. To our listeners, Mission Taqueria isn't just serving incredible tacos. It's building a connection, celebrating creativity and reminding us how important it is to create spaces that what? Bring people together. You can find Daniel and his team on Instagram @MissionTaqueria. You can visit them in Center City, 1516 Sansom Street, second floor above the Oyster House.
Daniel McLaughlin: That's it.
Jess DeBear: And experience the magic for yourself. Daniel McLaughlin, Mission Taqueria. Thanks for stepping by.
Daniel McLaughlin: [inaudible 00:31:31] and the necessities.
Doug Pires: Thank you.
Daniel McLaughlin: Thank you, Doug. It's a pleasure.
Jess DeBear: So fun.
Daniel McLaughlin: Thank you. Thank you very much.
Doug Pires: Daniel, you're a rockstar dude. Keep up the great work. We love it.
Daniel McLaughlin: Thanks, Doug. Appreciate it. Thank you both.
Jess DeBear: Thank you, dear.
Daniel McLaughlin: I'll catch you later.
Jess DeBear: Oh my god.
Doug Pires: Much do you love him?
Jess DeBear: I want to be eight years old and go camping with him and have the best time. He's so adorable. I just like him.
Doug Pires: Camping?
Jess DeBear: I don't know.
Doug Pires: He's the owner of a restaurant, Jess.
Jess DeBear: I want him to be my best friend. I want him to be my bestie. I think maybe we are besties. No.
Doug Pires: I think your next video is you decorating a tree in his restaurant.
Jess DeBear: I would totally do that, but I can't just be like, "Let me come out and do a taco tree for you." I totally would.
Doug Pires: You can. Jessica can. You can say things. You can get away with stuff. Do it.
Jess DeBear: I can?
Doug Pires: Yes. He's an entrepreneur. And that's the thing. You can tell he has a very good business brain. The reality is he bet on himself. He's like, "No, I'll figure this out."
Jess DeBear: Yeah. I feel like he knows what he's got and he's good at it and it gives him joy. I feel like I'm not blowing smoke. This is like what you do with your clients. You're into it. It brings you joy to see them reach their financial goals. I'm not blowing smoke. It genuinely brings you joy. It's the same thing. He has a gift and he's putting it out there. The way that his brain works and his creative side to getting this restaurant where it is is not something everybody can do.
Doug Pires: No.
Jess DeBear: Really cool.
Doug Pires: He brought up that phrase, merchant of vibe. I like that. Jessica, you are a merchant of vibe. That can be your title.
Jess DeBear: I like that. Yeah, because it's only good. It's only good energy.
Doug Pires: Also like, ooh, man, there's some danger there. I don't know why.
Jess DeBear: True.
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