BusinessReport.com

Jim Urdiales grew up working in his dad’s restaurant, though he sure never thought he’d be running one himself.

That’s the restaurant business.

Urdiales, a third-generation restaurateur, moved his Louisiana Mexican restaurant Mestizo from Sherwood Forest Boulevard to a new location at the former Denny’s site across from T.J. Ribs on Acadian Thruway a little over a year ago. Although he’d done business for several years on Sherwood, it was like starting all over again.

Urdiales notes the irony: An independent can advertise until the cows come home and barely get noticed, while a big chain can come to town, spend nothing on ads and create a stampede all the same. That’s the restaurant business.

“It’s one of those things that when it gets in your blood it drives you,” he says. “Now I really couldn’t see myself doing anything else.”

Urdiales has been active with the Louisiana Restaurant Association since 2000 and served as Baton Rouge chapter president in 2006, the same year he received the state Presidential Leadership Award and was voted Active Member of the Year. He was chosen as the LRA’s Restaurateur of the Year in 2007.

At his restaurant, Urdiales is focused on fine-tuning his menu and giving customers the dining experience that must be there for a small independent restaurant like his to make it. Urdiales is also bracing for the “next wave” of chain restaurants coming to Baton Rouge.

“That’s what the restaurant business is: high risk,” Urdiales says. “It’s got to be a passion. This is not like a normal business venture that everything makes sense on paper and it’s all hunky-dory. It’s a balance act. You don’t know how many people are going to come through your door each day, but you have to be prepared for anything. It’s just a crazy business.”

What is the best advice you ever received?

“The best advice was from my father in 1995. He said, ‘maybe you should open your own restaurant.’”