Behind the Plate Episode 5 - Fish & Company - Trevor Escalante

Trevor Escalante discusses his journey into the restaurant industry, influenced by his family's history in food service. He worked his way up from entry-level roles to corporate training and store opening, but sought independence. Trevor co-founded a German and Mexican food truck with his father, then opened a German restaurant. He later started Fish  & CO, a seafood restaurant, just before the pandemic hit, which forced a three-month closure. Fish prices surged from $38/10 lbs in 2020 to $120/10 lbs in 2022. Despite challenges, Trevor emphasizes the importance of knowing one's worth, treating employees well, and being open to change and innovation in business.

Transcript

Antonio Howell  0:00  
Hey everyone, welcome to Behind the Plate. I'm your host, Antonio, and this is the podcast where we go behind the scenes of the restaurant world from day to day operations through challenges of running a business. We'll hear first hand stories from the people who bring the favorite meals to life. Whether you're dreaming of opening your own spot or just curious about what it takes, you're in the right place. Let's get started.

Trevor Escalante  0:47  
I'm ready. 

Antonio Howell  0:47  
Okay, what's your story? That's part one of the question. And then how did you end up doing what you do today?

Trevor Escalante  0:54  
So my family has always been in the food business. Like growing up, my parents always worked in church in the food. They would do fundraisers, and they would cook meals. And even before my parents, my grandparents did it, and my grandparents did a little bit of catering. My Dad's Hispanic, and so growing up, it was always, everything was food, and always serving other people with food. And so that was how they showed their love. And so my parents did the same. And so that's how I got into it. That's kind of my background, getting into food. Growing up, my first job, I've had a couple weird jobs, like first jobs in high school, like I packaged shoes. I used to cut grass. I worked at a hotel once, but then I also worked in catering, and then I left the catering and the hotel, and I got into, like, really into restaurants, like fast casual, and I went far with that. So I worked my way up from, like, a cashier to, like, into the corporate world, and I was a trainer and a new store opener. And I traveled a lot, so that was a lot of fun, and I learned a lot, but I was young, and I was like, I don't want to do this. I don't want to just work for the same company for the rest of my life. 

Antonio Howell  2:35  
That's true. 

Trevor Escalante  2:37  
And there were things that I didn't like about it, and I didn't love everything within the corporate world. I was like, okay, I can do better. And then I left there and went into retail, and that's actually how I met your Mom.

Antonio Howell  2:53  
 Yeah, that was 

Trevor Escalante  2:54  
At Eddie Bauer. Yeah, that's right, I worked at Eddie Bauer for a little while, and I liked that, but I still missed food. And so then I was like, okay, what can I do? And that's when my Dad started opening his own restaurant inside here in Ecclesia. He had a food truck at the time. So, we had the food truck for like, six years, and then we opened Ecclesia with our restaurant, and the restaurant was German and Mexican food, or the food truck was and then in here we did just German food. 

Antonio Howell  3:32  
You sell sorry, my Mom was talking about it a couple days ago. You sellsausages at your food truck.

Trevor Escalante  3:40  
Yeah, we used to do, like, a sausage platter and, like, but it was, it was German and Mexican, German and Mexican food on the food truck, okay? And then here we sold the sausages too, but it was just German here, okay. And then after that, my dad did catering and the restaurant. And I was, I left Eddie Bauer to help him with that. And then after that, while I was here, I should say, the owner of the building, or of Ecclesia, Michella, yeah, approached my Dad and I and said, Would you want to do another restaurant in here? We want somebody to do seafood. And so that's kind of how I got into the fish thing. Because she was like, can you guys do seafood? And my Dad loves seafood. My I'm from. I was born in California. My dad grew up there, and so he really got into the fish always. My Dad ate it all the time, yeah. And so we were like, Yeah, we love seafood. And I was like, well, I'll do it, Dad, and you can focus on your restaurant, and I'll do my own restaurant. So that's how I started Fish CO and my Dad, he ended up closing because., he was taking his catering was like, really blowing up, and he couldn't do the catering and the restaurant here, so he closed his restaurant. And then after that was when the pandemic hit. So.

Antonio Howell  5:14  
That's right, yeah, and that's when you started your fish business. 

Trevor Escalante  5:18  
That's when fish and CO open was like, right before the pan dipping, it was like it was the pandemic hit when March of Yeah, March of 2020 and we had opened in January of 2020 so we closed for those three months until June, and then in June, we opened fully with our full Fish menu. So it kind of like, during we opened and then we closed, kind of deal. 

Antonio Howell  5:52  
So how was the pandemic? Because I have other guests on here saying it was the best year ever. But they're, they're a holder from the industry. Wasn't even food, 

Trevor Escalante  5:59  
Um, I it was hard. So I especially just opening up. I closed for the first three months because I didn't want my first impression of Fish & CO, because we were so new, I didn't want that first impression to be fried fish to go, because anything you get fried is best eaten fresh. 

Antonio Howell  6:24  
Yeah, it's gonna be all soggy. 

Trevor Escalante  6:25  
It's gonna be all soggy. It's gonna be all gross. So I did not, I did not open for those three months. So I didn't lose any money. We were very fortunate to have a landlord that didn't charge us rent for those three months, we still had to pay certain things, like we had to pay like, like our heating and electric and all that kind of stuff, basic, like utilities and different expenses, but our major rent was covered for those three months, and then when we opened again, we still had the challenges, like no indoor dining. We had to get creative with outdoor dining, especially here in Colorado, because weather is such a big factor. 

Antonio Howell  6:33  
That's true 

Trevor Escalante  6:41  
For how people eat and go out. That was hard. It was a hard year, especially for fish, because the fish prices just skyrocketed. So when I opened in January of 2020, I was paying $38 for 10 pounds of fish. 

Antonio Howell  7:42  
Is that an is that 10 pounds,

Trevor Escalante  7:44  
 yeah, 10 pounds of fish. No, that's, that's a good price, $38 for 10 pounds of fish. And that was what I opened up with. It started to go up towards the end of 2020 it was like $60 $80. In '21 it continued to get up there. And then in 2022 it went way up. Because there was continually, continually growing in price. Because what they do is they fish for a season and they freeze it. And so basically, you're always a season behind. So at the end of 2021 they were using fish that was caught at the end of 2020 during the pandemic, and the beginning of 2021 fresh. Well, the way they freeze the fish is it keeps it fresh, yeah, because, like, once it's frozen, because it takes a minute for it to go through there.

So it's not like the fish is bad at all, yeah, and sometimes it depends what fish you're getting, but we really saw an increase at the end of 2021 and it just kept going up into 2022, and we were paying, like $120 for 10 pen, 10 pounds of fish cheese. So it went up a lot. 

Antonio Howell  9:11  
You ever think of changing fish like different?

Trevor Escalante  9:13  
 I thought about it, but I know, yeah, fish and stuff. 

Antonio Howell  9:16  
Everybody love that. 

Trevor Escalante  9:17  
Everybody likes catfish. But it's not a restaurant that you it's not a place where you can get ocean, no, like, it's not a fish that you can do one restaurant on, like, cod. Cod is, I had a lot of people that would come in and be like, Oh, I hate fish, but I love your cod. Like, it would come, happen a lot so and everything else went up in price. So it was really hard. The year of COVID was tough, and it continued to get tougher. Absolutely. 2023 was a smooth year, and 2024 was okay. But really it still feels like I'm feeling the impact from COVID. So it was tough.

Antonio Howell  10:03  
So, I mean, after the years, it started to level out, but then you closed in 2024 maybe it started 2025

Trevor Escalante  10:10  
Yep, I closed. Fish was gonna go up again, and it's still going up. I mean, everybody's dealing with new things, tariffs and that kind of stuff. I didn't want to raise my prices again. I was tired. 

Antonio Howell  10:25  
Yeah, 

Trevor Escalante  10:26  
It was all it was a lot of work. The last five years were, were tough.

Antonio Howell  10:32  
Did you ever think of going down a different route? Are you thinking of that now?

Trevor Escalante  10:35  
Well, I have, I still have restaurants. The two restaurants that I have currently arechicken beef lamb, and we get our beef local. We get our chicken local, we get our lamb local. So like all of our prices, don't have as much roller coaster things. Like beef goes up every year, but it's in the summer, and then it kind of goes down a little bit in the winter. When fish it could change from week to week.

Antonio Howell  10:35  
Yeah,

Trevor Escalante  10:35  
 The pricing, so, it's nice to have something that's local, a little bit more control of our prices, because even for all of our beef, we actually don't even have a middleman. We work directly with a ranch to get all of our beef nowso it works out.

And then you open Fish & Company alone, right?

I did, and then I brought in a partner, and then my business partner left and I closed it alone. So like I was I, my business partner was with Fish & CO for let's see, 2020. I started planning Fish & Co in 2019 opened in 2020 and he came on in 2020 and then he left at the end of 2021.

Antonio Howell  12:05  
okay? And then you're also, you opened these two restaurants with Michella.

Trevor Escalante  12:10  
With Michelle, and Michelle is my business partner there. Oh yeah. Would you say it's easier with business? Oh my gosh, it's so much easier having someone to bounce ideas off of. If I need something, she can help me, and vice versa. So it works out, oh, yeah,

Antonio Howell  12:26  
is there anything else that's big I should know about

Trevor Escalante  12:30  
Opening a business. Don't be afraid to raise your pricing. One thing, something that's always been told to me from multiple people, is, know your worth, know how much your time is worth, your ideas, that kind of thing. But on top of that, like I always I wanted to do my own business, because I wanted to do something more, not to earn a bunch of money, which I haven't. So like, I guess I'm doing I guess I'm being true to that, but I wanted to do it different. So that way employees, the people who work for me, we can still run a business, but still treat each other, like humans. 

Antonio Howell  13:21  
Absolutely 

Trevor Escalante  13:22  
And so, and not just worker bees or things like that. And I still am doing that with my current businesses, so that's not hard. Don't be afraid to be a little bit different and change how things are done. If you think you can, you can, but also know your worth, yeah, so that's it,

Antonio Howell  13:46  
Sweet.