Business Spotlight: More Than a Truck

Notcho Ordinary Taco LLC may have started as an off-the-cuff food truck idea discussed by three friends around a campfire, but for Casey McTavish, it became the career he never expected.

“The taco thing was just kind of random to be honest,” he says, regarding the idea he, his brother Corey McTavish and friend Dillon Ellis came up with. “I fell in love with it. It’s almost like going on a date and at first you think your date is alright, and 10 years later, you’ve been married for 10 years.

“We just wanted to do something recognizable and so we took chef inspired recipes and started turning them into tacos.”

McTavish, the owner, bought a food truck that was a bit of a fixer-upper for $25,000. He says with about $5,000 more for odds and ends and with his brother and friend as employees, the company that does business as Not’cho Ordinary Taco was up and running in 2013 in Bolivar, where the restaurant’s story started.

McTavish says the truck stood out in town, with its bright graffiti-style designs and everything made from scratch.

“We hand rolled over 2,000 homemade tortillas a week,” he says. “Then we were also hand rolling empanadas. We would have a full 12-hour day where we’d only roll tortillas and make empanadas.”

Gaining steam
As the business grew, McTavish realized making everything by hand was going to be too time consuming, so he made a few changes and started attending festivals in the food truck to bring more brand awareness. McTavish says it started with places like Stockton’s Black Walnut Festival but expanded to music festivals outside of the local area.

“We’ve now tried the food truck thing in every way possible,” he says. “Sometimes you can go to an event and make $30,000. Other places, you can lose $8,000.”

In the truck there are elements and any potential travel situations that can make work difficult.

“The truck gets up to 120 or 130 degrees sometimes,” he says. “It takes a specific type of person to do it. It’s a grind.”

McTavish says although they weren’t ever owners, but instrumental in the startup, his brother Corey and friend Ellis, aren’t involved like they were in the beginning. His brother still helps occasionally when they need extra hands, but Ellis stepped away two or three years into the business for other personal pursuits.

However, he says he’s always been lucky to have local, talented employees, including his wife and son.

His general manager, Tyler Painter, has worked with him for almost 10 years.

“I always was interested in food, and I worked at a couple of restaurants before this, but the idea of being able to work with my friends and have a bit of creative control was alluring,” Painter says.

McTavish says the taco truck was able to branch into Springfield before food trucks became popular in the area. He says the truck gained quite a following.

“We call them the Taco Stalkers,” he says, with a laugh, about the restaurant fans. “They would find us wherever we went. We have a very passionate fan base. I felt like we had to do something to move forward and get more brand recognition.”

McTavish was also looking to find a more reliable location and increase revenue. The truck tapped out around $250,000 in annual revenue, and he knew it was time to grow, but where to start for a business that wasn’t quite ready for its own brick-and-mortar spot was still unanswered.

14 Mill Market
One of Not’cho Ordinary Taco’s Nixa-based customers told McTavish about 14 Mill Market, a food hall owned by Leah and Rich Callahan slated to open in Nixa in June 2023. This motivated McTavish to reach out to the Callahans.

“I had heard of food halls in bigger markets, but I didn’t think I wanted to do anything like a food court,” he says. “I was reluctant at first, but once I met with Rich and Leah, it changed my whole perspective on what this could be.”

McTavish says moving to the market when it opened changed the way he views his brand and future opportunities.

“I realized we could make this work and into something that was recognized further than just the graffiti taco truck,” he says.

He says this helped with his model of selling quality tacos at a higher price point, as Nixa’s population is growing fast and has a higher median income than Springfield. He says some places he sold tacos in the truck, customers did not want to pay the price range he charged.

Leah Callahan says 14 Mill’s location has been an incubator model for growing restaurants, some of which it works well for, although not for others that want to stay as a side business food truck or have other locations to focus on. She says Not’cho Ordinary Taco has been the right fit for 14 Mill Market.

“This has been something that has provided some vendors the opportunity to have a permanent spot and has challenged them in some of the best ways,” she says. “It’s exciting, it’s fun and the concept allows for flexibility without a lot of financial strain.”

The Callahans declined to disclose a price range for rental spaces.

McTavish says being in the 14 Mill Market made it possible for him to finally breach his past maximum revenue and in 2023, he reached $650,000 between the truck and the brick-and-mortar location.

McTavish says he’s currently working on opening another business, a chicken wing truck that he is building, and looking into other markets for expansion for the taco business.

One thing he does know is he’s looking to make his nontraditional taco style, such as a pizza taco, shrimp po’boy taco and smoked brisket birria, a local favorite for years to come.

“We’re creatures of habit,” he says. “We want things we’re used to. My goal is to make Not’cho Ordinary Taco something you’re used to.”