Matthew Keiser and Brad Paxton didn’t come to Taco John’s through the traditional restaurant career path. They came from medical sales, looking for a business that could diversify their income.
Nearly a decade later, that side venture has become their full-time business, spanning 22 Taco John’s restaurants across eight states and giving the longtime business partners a platform for further expansion.
Keiser grew up in western Nebraska, part of Taco John’s core Upper Midwest territory. Paxton came from Paducah, Kentucky, another longtime market for the brand. Their familiarity with the chain eventually turned into a business idea.
“We kind of started talking about it, saying like, ‘Man, we loved it. We miss it.’ And we were like, let’s see if we can add more Taco John’s to the world and bring them out further than where they’ve been,” Keiser says.
They began operating two restaurants in central Kentucky and quickly discovered restaurant ownership demanded more attention than a secondary venture could receive. The partners eventually sold their medical sales business and committed full time to restaurants.
Their expansion since then has come primarily through acquisitions. Of the 22 Taco John’s restaurants in their portfolio, Keiser and Paxton built two and acquired the rest. Taco John’s long history has created a pipeline of longtime franchisees reaching retirement or seeking an exit, giving the pair opportunities to acquire established restaurants with proven sales and experienced teams.
The partners look for acquisitions where they can preserve what an existing operator built and identify areas for improvement. AUV and the strength of the restaurant’s general manager are two major considerations. New development is evaluated partly on whether another restaurant can fill geographic gaps and make existing operations easier to support.
Managing such a scattered footprint required Keiser and Paxton to change how they operated. Early in their restaurant careers, they handled everything from cleaning stores to local marketing. As the portfolio grew, they promoted experienced Taco John’s employees into multi-unit roles and gave general managers additional responsibility.
Technology also helps connect restaurants separated by hundreds of miles. Stores communicate through back-office platforms, participate in speed-of-service competitions, share ideas, and recognize wins across the organization.
“Even though you’re hundreds of miles away, it doesn’t really feel that way with our organization because they’re so tight knit,” Paxton says.
Their learning curve stretched far past geography. Moving from medical sales into restaurants introduced them to a business where small changes in food and labor costs could carry significant consequences.
Paxton says their existing back-office operation helped with the transition, but experienced employees taught them how to monitor controllables, labor, and food costs. Their first opening supplied another lesson. Sales initially struggled, forcing the partners to find unconventional ways to create awareness.
Keiser recalls cleaning the restaurant relentlessly and canvassing the community. Paxton was asked to leave a Walmart after handing out coupons. Keiser attached his own sign to a Department of Transportation sign near the restaurant and got in trouble for it.
“If you think you’ve done enough, you probably still need to do more,” Keiser says.
The restaurant business itself has changed significantly during their tenure. Third-party delivery went from an optional channel to a required part of operating a quick-service restaurant. Keiser says the group recognized the shift early and worked to maximize the channel.
For Paxton, technology hasn’t displaced the local connection that initially attracted them to restaurants. Many of their Taco John’s locations serve communities with populations of 10,000 to 12,000 or fewer.
During COVID, their restaurants gave away thousands of meals to elderly residents. More recently, the group offered free meals to affected government employees and SNAP recipients during a disruption in pay and benefits.
“Being community-centric and being involved in our communities has been, I believe, what has made us the most successful because it shows that we do love the communities that we’re in and we care about the people that are in them,” Paxton says.
That local focus has carried through a difficult operating environment. Keiser points to hiring challenges, food inflation, rising menu prices, and other economic pressures that have hit quick-service restaurants in recent years. Their response has been to focus on factors they can control inside each restaurant.
The partners are still looking for Taco John’s acquisitions, but they have also become multi-brand operators. In recent months, they opened a Nothing Bundt Cakes location in Owensboro, Kentucky, with two more planned for Indiana. Their priority is improving the Taco John’s portfolio, evaluating acquisition opportunities as they emerge, and building their newest concept without setting rigid expansion targets.
“We never like to be too hard and firm that we’re not expanding, or we need to buy more stores. We never want to do it like that,” Keiser says. “We want to just see what’s out there, evaluate everything, and see what makes sense for us.”
