Today we’d like to introduce you to Juan Carrero.
Hi Juan, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I am from San Cristobal, Venezuela. I went to culinary school in the Zi Teresa Culinary Academy and moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina. I furthered my studies there, pursuing several courses in meat, studies, meat smoking, BBQ. I was also the head chef of a gastropub, where I created a new menu every week. Because of political and economical turmoil, I was forced to move back to my hometown. There, I opened my own burger business called Altos Burger from 2015-2017. I worked out of my parent’s garage for the first year, where I would sell maybe three burgers a day. It took a while for my burgers to catch on because they were gourmet. Where I am from, people are not used to that kind of cuisine, preferring traditional foods over trying something new. When my burgers finally caught on, I was selling 120 burgers a day. I was offered a spot in the local social club, where my popularity skyrocketed. Sadly, I was forced to shut down. Inflation was growing exponentially fast, causing me to reprice my burgers everyday. Everyday was a fight against the inflation as the money I made the past day was completely devalued the day after. It became harder and harder to find all the materials I needed to continue with my business. Even with my success, I had to shut down.
During this time, Venezuela was in the height of political turmoil. My family was being targeted because of its tie to the oppositional political party. It was no longer safe for me to stay in Venezuela, so I immigrated to the US where I received political asylum. I first moved to New York where I lived for a year before meeting my current partner, Adriana Celli, who is also a Venezuelan immigrant. I moved to Austin to be with her and worked in many odd jobs for about two years. While I worked for Aurora’s Venezuelan food truck in the Domain, the Lone Star Court reached out to the owner of Aurora if they knew anybody who would be interested in opening a food truck in their food court. He thought of me and asked if I would be interested. I knew this was an amazing opportunity and immediately jumped into action. I partnered up with my girlfriend, Adriana, and we managed to get our food truck, That Burger, up and running in less than a month. Thanks to her family, my family, and all of our hard work, I was able to continue my dream of having my own gourmet burger business and living the American dream that every immigrant has when they move to the US. We are very excited to see our business grow. We love our location and couldn’t be happier.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has been a very rocky road for me to get here. My first business in Venezuela was very hard to grow. Venezuela is a country plagued in corruption and political turmoil so starting a business is always hard. Food scarcity and inflation made it hard to run normal day-to-day operations. When I moved to the US, I was not able to work for more than eight months as I waited for my asylum case to be reviewed and accepted. When it was finally approved, I was only able to get odd jobs here and there due to the pandemic. When I was finally offered the spot in the Lone Star Court, they told me I had less than a month to get my business running in order to be operational the first weekend of October. They wanted this because their hotel was booked completely the first weekends of October due to ACL, Formula 1, US Mens National Team Qualifying match vs Jamaica, and Moto GP. This meant that we had to get all of our permits, buy all our supplies and equipment, wrap the food truck in vinyl and figure out logistics in a very limited amount of time. Luckily we were able to get everything done, but it was very stressful for both my partner and I for those few weeks.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about That Burger?
That Burger is a gourmet burger food truck located in the Domain. We get inspiration for our burgers from cuisines all over the world. We currently have six burgers on our menu: That American Burger, That Mexican Burger, That Italian Burger, That French Burger, That German Burger and That Argentinian Burger. We research the cuisine of each country and find inspiration from each to create a burger that highlights flavors from that country. We make everything that we can from scratch. We pride ourselves in the quality of our meat. We use 100% Angus beef and grind our own meat to ensure that we know what is in each patty. We only make patties that we will use each day and never freeze our patties. When people bite into our burgers, they can taste the freshness and difference in our burgers. Since opening, we have received great feedback and are loved by the local Domain community. We ensure to provide the best customer service and make every burger to perfection.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
Growing up, I was a very independent kid. My parents had me when they were older, my middle brother being eight years older than me and my oldest brother 15. My parents were great parents, but because of their age, they usually could not keep track of me. I spent my days on my bike, roaming the streets with a cup covering the wheels so that it sounded like a motorcycle. I spent my afternoons with the neighborhood security guard, who would help me with my homework and take me on rounds with him. I was a bit of a daredevil and would do many things that would give most parents a heart attack. At school, I was the class clown. I had a pet gummy worm that I would take to school in cup with water called Filemon. I loved to crack jokes, which would usually end up in me getting in trouble. I also loved to play soccer. I did a year abroad in High School, where I got sent to Seaford, Delaware. Here, I learned how to speak English.
Contact Info:
- Email: thatburgeratx@gmail.com
- Website: www.thatburgeratx.com
- Instagram: thatburgeratx
- Facebook: facebook.com/thatburgeratx
