Mexican brunch restaurant Con Huevos in Louisville is celebrating 10 years since it opened its first location. The storefront on Frankfort Avenue started with a few tables and a small kitchen. Now, Con Huevos has five locations and ambitions to expand.
LPM’s Giselle Rhoden spoke to the owners: husband-and-wife duo Jesús Martínez and Izmene Peredo Martínez.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
What inspired both of you to open the restaurant?
Jesús Martínez: 10 years ago, we both were working for a big company, a spirits company, at that point, we recently got married. So we were starting a new life here in Louisville, Kentucky. We both are coming from the marketing world, and in my case, working for big companies in Mexico and here as well with Brown Forman on the marketing side. My job in the last almost 30 years was developing brands from scratch and launching them. Working for a [corporation], I needed to travel a lot for them, managing brands in the Latin America region and tequilas globally. I was dreaming so big of having a family that the last thing that I wanted to do is once having my kid, not being able to spend time with him. So, curiously, the deep purpose of starting this business was to be able to manage our own time and be able to focus on family. We started putting ideas on the table, and obviously food felt like the right path to go. Izmene is a great cook. That is one of the things that I love about her. I'm a foodie kind of thing.
Izmene Peredo Martínez: We started thinking about [opening] a restaurant. And when we decided to do a breakfast place, I just have these ideas from how we have breakfast in Mexico. But I have some of the recipes from my family, my dad and my grandfather. I ended up balancing spending time in the kitchen, but as well, having a healthy life and being a mom and being an entrepreneur, and have time for me as well.
On Con Huevos’s Facebook, Jesús mentioned when you opened your first location, you didn't have a freezer. How did your team manage?
JM: The very first location, the section that we used to be, it was tiny. And the kitchen, it was just a third part of what you see right now on Frankfurt Avenue. The way it works in Mexico. I mean, traditionally, you go to the market, you buy, you produce fresh, you go home, you prep, you cook, it’s ready for a day. We understood that the only way to make this work was doing everything fresh every day. So we actually started working with the vendors and asking them. We started searching for them and trying to figure out how to do this, and asking them, “Are you able to supply me every day?” So they were laughing at us, because they usually do is they supply to restaurants once or twice a week. So we were able to find a way to get supplied at least every other day, and that helps us out a lot to to start cooking from scratch and with no need to put anything in the freezer.
Where did the name come from?
JM: In Mexico, we use that phrase a lot, that phrase “con huevos.” It is a common phrase in families to let whoever is in charge go outside to look for that and tell them whatever you do it “con huevos.” Whatever you do with strength, with your soul, with a lot of energy. In Mexico, we love to have double or triple meanings on different phrases. So it's not just the literal meaning of “with eggs.” When we started discussing about, “What we're going to call this restaurant?” And when we started discussing the idea of embodying what really Mexico is, and trying somehow to represent all of those people that need to wake up really early in the morning and work hard. For me, at least, it was easy to decide something that matches what we do, which is actually do eggs, right? That very Mexican phrase, “con huevos,” and you will see the exclamation point at the end of the logo. That's why, because it's the same. Do it “con huevos!”
IPM: Because it's a way you want to start every day, like, with energy.
JM: We understood that maybe the classic, the Americans in general, will not get it. They will see it just like a literal meaning. But we knew that all Latinos will immediately understand the double meaning.
You guys have five locations in Louisville. When you started expanding, were you worried about handling that growth?
JM: We always knew that if the concept worked out, we wanted to start growing. The key thing here that I would say is since the very beginning, we agreed that we will grow at our own pace. If the main purpose of having this business is to focus on family, the last thing we want to do is to try to grow as fast as possible, that will hurt the possibility to spend enough time with family. I think we are growing at the perfect pace.
IPM: It's always going to be challenging to open a new location…We make everything from scratch every day, so making everything from scratch every day in five different kitchens is challenging. We are different. We are not a franchise, like on any other breakfast places in Louisville that are a franchise, so they just do everything in the same kitchen, and they just deliver in the different locations. For us, the way it works is we made everything in each kitchen. So that's why sometimes it's hard to keep the same consistency. And as well, it's always challenging, of course, to have the right people working at the restaurant and trying to delegate them the operations. But we spend a lot of time trying to have the right people working with us.
What have both of you learned about being restaurant owners, and what have you learned about the restaurant industry since starting this business?
JM: We have the great benefit of having the opportunity to work in a big corporation or coming from that world. So that helps us out to have a structure, and that's key in this type of industry. You hear often a lot of stories about great restaurants and how they started. Most of the time you hear that it started with someone that was maybe the dishwasher, and then became a cook, and then became a great cook, and then he decided to do it by himself, and then open a new place…I've seen, unfortunately, some stories of great places and great concepts that they didn't last because they didn't have a structure…I think that what is even what it is adding greatness to the equation is to have the opportunity to to get prepared. To study, to learn, get really prepared on statistics and consumer behaviors, insights, etc, and try to be as structured as possible.
IPM: Another thing I think is very important as well to be really involved and to take care of your employees, you cannot succeed if you don't have the right people working with you. But it's not only having the right people working beside them, taking care of them, being involved in what is happening with them every day. And it's really hard because, of course. For example, for me, sometimes not being sad about what is happening to them as well. I have two sons, but at some point I feel that I have 100 because each of them has their own problems, their own life and their own situations. And I'm trying to be with them, and to help them and to talk with them. And that is something that I think that is helping a lot as well for us.
What's next for Con Huevos?
JM: We are getting ready for the next 10 years. This is a business that we think is going to last 100 years. We want to continue growing as a family again, but at our own pace.
IPM: We know that we need to evolve. We have been growing, learning and evolving, and we are going to continue doing it. Hopefully we are going to be in another state and maybe in other countries. We would love to see Con Huevos in London, in Paris, of course, in Mexico as well.
