Not many can do trendy culture-fusion Tex-Mex better than Velvet Taco—except, maybe, artificial intelligence? In July 2023, the Dallas-based chain launched ChatGPTaco as one of its WTFs (weekly taco features). It was so successful that Velvet Taco decided to bring it back for a second round, aptly named the ChatGPTaco 2.0.
Being located so close to Mexico, there are a multitude of taco options in the DFW area. Velvet Taco’s ability to be innovative is the key to standing out, says CEO Clay Dover. He said the brand “look[s] for inspiration from all over. Our WTF allows us to try something different all the time and it gives us a license to do anything, whether it’s a Hawaiian ahi tuna taco or a burnt ends barbecue taco. It allows us to try something for a week and then move on.”
With the motto “Tacos without Borders,” Velvet Taco is no stranger to wacky taco combos—Halloween 2023 was celebrated with a sweet pumpkin pie in a pie crust shell while April 2024 culminated with a French dip-esque WTF with prime rib and gruyere, with chipotle au jus on the side for dipping.
Chef Venecia Willis has been with the brand for two and half years and manages all menu innovation, including sourcing equipment and tracking down unique ingredients. Tapping into the AI market started when Willis used it as a functioning tool to see what the program knew about Velvet Taco. Next, she had it create a peanut butter and jelly taco and found that it gave her multiple options for nut butter and many flavors of jam.
“I pitched the idea of doing an AI-generated taco on a Monday with our CEO Clay Dover, and we actually went live 10 days after,” Willis says. “And that includes billboards and everything.”
When creating the AI taco, she first made her way down the serving and prep counter, inputting every ingredient into the system. She assigned certain rules to each item, such as noting chicken as a protein and salsa as a topping sauce. She also made sure ChatGPT 4’s creation did not include more than eight toppings inside one taco.
After asking the AI program to create four different tacos, Willis and her tasting panel finally sat down to try them out. The only mishap was a fried tofu and pineapple taco with red curry coconut queso. She adds, “You definitely need to fact-check it!”
“The great thing about [using ChatGPT] was that if we didn’t like any of them, we could always just copy and repeat and run it through again, and see what it would come up with,” she says. “But I wanted to keep it as true to the exercise as possible by not changing any of the ingredients. We wanted to keep it 100 percent true to what it spit out.”
The ChatGPTaco in 2023 was filled with grilled flank steak, blackened shrimp, crispy fried potatoes, red chile aioli, queso fresco, red chile aioli, and grilled onion.
This year’s ChatGPTaco 2.0 was a riff on the original, featuring a Tajin basmati rice base, blackened shrimp, queso fresco, avocado crema, pickled red onions, red chile aioli, jalapenos, corn pico de gallo, and cilantro, wrapped up in a corn tortilla. Dover points out the trendiness of Tajin in the culinary world and notes that ChatGPT was able to pick up on it and choose to blend it specifically with the basmati rice, saying, “It’s thinking!”
The normal restaurant menu includes around 20 seasonal tacos as well as various chip and dip options. The new WTF drops keep the customer on the balls of their feet, and keep them returning to further expand their palate. From a financial perspective, Velvet Taco sees a spike in sales nearly every Wednesday on the day of the WTF release as well as on Tuesday, for the customers sneaking in one last taste before the exclusive item leaves forever.
In 2023, Velvet Taco’s average number of impressions per post on social media was about 100,000. However, the fast casual achieved more than four times its normal statistics on posts related to Willis’ ChatGPTaco. The brand even decided to keep the exclusive taco special on for an extra week so that all of 47 locations could feature it.
This year, ChatGPTaco 2.0 has outperformed its older sibling, despite Velvet Taco’s decision to decrease its marketing campaign the second time around. This triumph places the 2.0 version as one of the top three best-performing WTF of the year, so far through August.
As the world braces for the new age of artificial intelligence and the trials and terrors that may come in tow with its usage, Velvet Taco sees the technology as a block to build off of rather than a parasite encroaching on the creative process.
“It’s one of those things where I’d really want to get in front of it as a tool, as opposed to someone saying later on that this could take over [my] job,” Willis says. “If I can use it to find issues within the system, and have it work for me, then I think that’s a better approach.”
She suggests that she could also use AI to help brainstorm names for new tacos, for food waste mitigation, and to fine-tune their prep station to ease the process and increase the flow of building each taco.
Using AI in a culinary setting is just one part of the process, says Dover. “No one felt threatened, no one’s like ‘Oh my gosh, computers are gonna take over the restaurant industry or take over our jobs.’”
Rather, Dover sees AI as a tool that has only just begun to help service industry personnel to further innovate, saying, “It allows our chef a wider base of knowledge—it’s adapting and using things that are from all over the world, [with] different flavors and different cultures giving input, and that is our brand!”
Velvet Taco is not just expanding its customers’ flavor palates. New locations are opening soon in Phoenix, Arizona, and Miami, Florida. For a restaurant like Velvet Taco that uses and expands upon worldwide cuisine on a continual weekly basis, AI can help chefs learn more about global culinary trends without hours of research.