Meet Jose Padilla | Paella Chef

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jose Padilla and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jose, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
As a computer engineer, my thought process was to design a process that could be cost effective and that would allow me to ensure superior quality. I tested the workflow with friends and family before launching my business, which allowed me to make any necessary adjustments. Once the process was solid, I began to market my business following a guerrilla approach to marketing, which for me is slow but steady. And the key ingredient was bringing my family as advisors, my mother helped me adapt the family recipe to local products, that was essential, otherwise I would have started with a product that was too rigid and difficult to adapt.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Our small business is authentic, we are not copying what others have done, we have adapted our know-how to better serve the market. One distinctive asset that sets us apart is our heritage: I am a double immigrant, when I was 8 years old we moved from Spain to Venezuela, thirty two years later we moved (my immediate family) from Venezuela to Dallas, Texas. I am proud to have in my toolbox: multiculturalism, bilingualism, entrepreneur knowledge, corporate experience, and the ability to seize opportunities. It was not easy to grow a business so specialized, but it wasn’t horribly hard either; our product and services are appealing to most people, and even for those that frown at seafood, we created a Texan paella to please them, this dish is parallel in popularity to the mixed-family-recipe paella that started all this tale.

I have learned many lessons, perhaps the most important one is to believe in yourself. There were moments when we had fierce competition that was taking a lot of our market share, but we persevered, we evolved, we thrive, and we are still here, others are long gone.

I want the word to know that paella is a food to share, from the moment our clients contact us, we start sharing, the planning, the setting, the special days, the smiles, and the yummy comments, it all happens because paella is magnetic to people, or is it us who are magnetic?

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I would start by having breakfast at our local coffee shop, Sweetwater Coffee & Tea, where we will start catching up. I must probably review my plan with my friend, I wouldn’t want to impose. If the weather allows it, I would promenade around our tiny neighborhood lake with my dog, Wanda. Let’s assume my plans were fully accepted, we´ll start a round trip to New Mexico, we could travel via Abilene and Odessa and certainly stop at Las Cruces to stay in Lundeen Inn of the Arts. Next day we will head to White Sands National Park. and from there go to Ruidoso (I will really prefer to do this during winter time). We will continue the periplus to Albuquerque, and next Santa Fe. On the way back we´ll stop at Santa Rosa to finish staying one night (hopefully a football game night) at Lubbock.

We have been very lucky and have traveled to Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, California, Arizona, etc. The reason why I would take my friend (most sure a foreigner like me) to see the uniqueness of New Mexico is because the pictures anyone can take there are astonishing and the food is superb, I will encourage my friend to have endless Christmas salsa and pick pear margaritas.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
My immediate family (wife and children) and my mom.

Website: https://paella1513.com/

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