Gourmet burrito delivery a favorite in Boulder

BOULDER — The healthiest stuff you can get in office delivery is the billing for Burrito Del Mar’s retail line of burritos, salads and gazpacho or chilled soup.

Rose Cady, part owner with Loni Alviar, bought the business in August 1999 with a $25,000 Small Business Administration (SBA) loan.

“Conventional financing was not an option. We had no fixed assets,” Cady said. The partners also put up $5,000 of their own money and financed the rest of the $35,000 purchase price with Dawn Emming, the founder of Burrito Del Mar or burrito of the sea.

“The business originally consisted of fish burritos,” Cady said. “We kept the shrimp and calamari burrito and will add a salmon burrito this year, but we wanted more than just fish in our products.” The choices include gourmet burritos with rice, breakfast burritos, chicken burritos with Indonesian barbecue sauce and several varieties of vegetarian burritos.

“Our vegetarian burritos are very popular and include a vegan choice with no cheese and a barbecue, non-bean vegetable burrito,” Cady said. The Mexi-cali or shrimp burrito and black-bean and pinto-with-cheese burritos are carried in health-food stores and coffee shops in Boulder, along with the breakfast burrito and vegetarian burritos.

The barbecue sauce recipe is made with soy sauce, red onions and garlic, giving the burritos a unique, savory and mild flavor.

Cady handles the office delivery and accounting, while Alviar prepares and delivers the wholesale products to health-food stores and coffee shops in Boulder, Longmont and Lafayette. Gross monthly sales of $9,000 are double what they were nearly a year ago. She did it by pursuing new accounts like coffee shops. “I called every coffee shop in Boulder and all but two are now selling our products,” she said.

Retail sales are a small part or about 5 percent of their business. Cady makes the rounds five mornings a week in north Boulder where few restaurants exist where people can get lunch. Alviar prepares, makes and delivers their products six days a week to health-food stores and coffee shops such as Whole Foods, Alfalfa’s and North Boulder Market. “Our goal is to grow and expand for the next five years, primarily toward Denver,” Cady said.

The partners like being their own boss. Alviar, from the Philippines, and Cady, from Boulder, met in Oregon where Cady went to college. “We packed and moved to Boulder before we got the SBA loan,” she said. A Key Bank employee in Denver, Yolanda Russell, helped them process their loan and assured them they would get it. On that basis, they headed for Colorado. Eventually the couple wants to move on to a solar energy business and possibly live in the Philippines. They have a 2-year-old daughter, Aiyana.

For information on wholesale or retail burrito sales, call (303) 903-1142.

on Facebook on LinkedIn