Taco John’s Set for Early November Opening

New Interior

Who gets taco #1 when the refurnished Taco John’s opens in Lamar the first week in November? According to Marnie Garcia, District Manager, Les Scriven’s name is at the top of the list.  “Les has been following our progress since we started our renovations with the new owners,” she explained.  Scriven was a former owner of the popular franchise restaurant on the southern end of Lamar.

Countertop Dining is A New Feature

Garcia has been in Lamar for the past several days helping direct the final details of construction and has been working with the Lamar Workforce Center during their recent job fair for Taco John’s. “There’s been a lot of recent interest in the opening and we want to make sure we get all those Ole’s out to our customers,” she said, referencing the popular fried potato rounds on the menu.  “I’ve been out to the college talking to the business students and here at the Workforce Center, interviewing the applicants that have come in,” she explained.  The Center hosted a job fair this past Tuesday, from 1pm to 6pm, setting up a room where Garcia and another person conducted the interviews.  “We’re expecting to hire from 30 to 35 persons, full and part time and we start hiring as young as 16 years.  We’ll work around their schedules to make a good hire,” she said.  Students displaying their college ID’s will get a 10% discount.

Garcia stressed the company’s commitment to hometown involvement and service. “We aren’t making a lot of changes to the menu.  We follow the company’s guidelines on that, but we will feature a lot of limited time offers during our initial opening,” she explained.  The former restaurant maintains the basic outlines for wall space, but everything else is brand new, from the bathrooms to the kitchen equipment and a new seating arrangement which will feature more space for counter dining.  “We’ll still be open seven days a week starting at 6:30 Monday through Saturday and from 8am to 10pm on Sunday.  We’ll be open until 11pm on Saturday to catch some of the younger crowd after a game or a night out,” Garcia remarked.  She emphasized that one priority is to maintain a clean and friendly atmosphere.  “Our group conducts monthly inspections and they all have to hit a certain mark in order to pass.  We want to make sure that we also pass inspection from the customer’s point of view.”

By Russ Baldwin