Lasting Impact Spotlight: 10 Years of Family Business Growth in El Salvador
From two failing taco carts to a thriving corporate entity with 114 employees, learn how Taquería Los Sánchez rebuilt their family business through financial discipline, resilience, and a commitment to growth.
Jessica Cañas and her husband, Ricardo Ernesto Sánchez, ran their family business, Taquería Los Sánchez, on pure instinct. When they started the business in 2013, they managed two taco carts and a small restaurant in San Salvador, El Salvador. In those early years, Mexican food was their worst-selling category because they hadn’t yet found a rhythm or a menu that truly connected with their customers.
A lot has changed since the couple joined TechnoServe’s Impulsa Tu Empresa (ITE) program in 2016. ITE served as a high-impact accelerator designed to help small and growing businesses rapidly scale their operations and achieve sustainable growth.
Through a strategic partnership with the Argidius Foundation—alongside critical support from the Multilateral Investment Fund, Walmart Foundation, Citi Foundation, and PIMCO Foundation—TechnoServe supported high-potential entrepreneurs with specialized mentoring, market linkages, and the capital necessary to execute robust business plans.
Today, Taquería Los Sánchez has been replaced by a formal corporate entity. Inversiones Los Sánchez SA de CV operates four restaurant branches and has expanded from five to 114 employees. Their revenue has increased 47-fold.
From 2012 to 2020, ITE supported more than 1,800 businesses in Central America. Altogether, these enterprises have achieved remarkable revenue growth of over $48 million, created more than 1,600 new jobs, and mobilized over $7 million in capital.
Starting Over: How Financial Discipline Led to Family Business Growth
The first version of the business failed in 2016 because of poor financial management and low sales. Jessica admits they were simply doing what they could with the knowledge they had at the time, which meant they couldn’t afford to offer benefits to their staff or build a brand people actually remembered.
“We went bankrupt,” Jessica explained. “We could have left our dream on hold there and searched for a job with a fixed income or something else, but we decided to continue despite the obstacles.”
When they decided to restart the business in 2017, they used some of their learnings from ITE. “We learned not to take hurried decisions,” Jessica explained, noting that they now analyze every move based on hard numbers and projections.
This new mindset allowed the couple to begin reorganizing the business from the ground up. They built internal departments that allowed for real scale:
- Human Talent: A dedicated team now manages their direct employees.
- Accounting: An internal department keeps financial oversight tight across all locations.
- Logistics: A central production and distribution hub for all four restaurants to ensure consistent quality.
Resilience in Family Business After a Devastating Fire
“On February 3, 2021, after surviving and adapting to a different business model during the global pandemic, our branch in Antiguo Cuscatlán caught fire,” Jessica shared. “We had to close our doors for three months.”
Despite the setback, Jessica and Ricardo knew they would bounce back. They moved the employees to other locations to avoid layoffs and invested in new, professional kitchen equipment.
For many family businesses, a total loss like that marks the end of the story. For Taquería Los Sánchez, it was a three-month pause during which they redesigned their business model and fixed operational bottlenecks, such as food preparation taking too long.
How Budgeting Helped Fund Family Business Growth
Financial independence has been the most tangible result of this decade of work. Jessica still uses the strict budgeting methods she learned from TechnoServe years ago. That discipline has allowed the company to grow without taking on outside debt. All four current branches are 100% self-funded using the company’s own profits, and they even purchased the property for their logistics center outright.
How One Growing Family Business Created Opportunity for Others
As Taquería Los Sánchez grew, Jessica pushed her suppliers to professionalize their own operations as well. She is also planning to launch a foundation to provide other Salvadoran entrepreneurs with the knowledge and tools they need to start their own ventures or secure better employment in the restaurant sector.
Jessica identifies a specific formula for staying in business: God, consistency, order, and discipline. “Growing is not the difficult part,” she said. “Staying is the true challenge.” Thanks to Jessica and Ricardo, Taquería Los Sánchez is setting a standard for what a local business can become when it’s built on a solid foundation.
