Meet Ervin Lopez

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ervin Lopez. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ervin below.

Ervin, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

To put it simply, there’s nowhere else to go except forward. Obviously, take some breaks a long the way when you remember to or when someone reminds you to step back and drink water and it absolutely helps to know that I can trust others around me to get things done. It won’t always be easy or pretty but We always have to move forward.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

My name is Ervin Lopez (him/them) and I am a second generation Filipino-American. I’m a co-owner of a pop-up and catering team called Tabachito. Along with myself and my life parter, Lisbeth, we serve Filipino/Asian cuisine the way we like to enjoy it – full of flavor, bold and delicious. Our menu has familiar favorite like lumpia and bbq skewers and we’ve made new dishes that haven’t been seen yet like our char siu curry pancit. Ultimately, our menu deeply connected to our own cravings.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

1. Make mistakes and be okay with some failure. Then learn how to avoid them the next time around. Know that sometimes, it’s not your fault – owning a business is a lot of pressure that most people won’t see but learning how to do something better will make the next go-around a lot easier.

2. Be with at least one other person who sees your vision (and sometimes things you don’t see). Two heads are better than one and being able to lean on someone when things get difficult even for a second is a wonderful feeling. And trust that person. Know when and how to step up and step aside with this person(s).

3. Write down EVERYTHING. Every good recipe is written down somewhere with specific weights and quantities. It will make figuring out yields, food cost and menu pricing easier to manage. Side note: this equation literally helps me all the time when calculating how much of an ingredient I need: New Yield ÷ Old Yield = Multiplier (NOM for short)

How would you spend the next decade if you somehow knew that it was your last?

There are a few things that come to mind. I am really excited that this is our own home-based business and that we’re making these decisions for us and no one else, but because it’s based at home, it is literally our office. Space is a huge issue. Working from home might feel different when it’s on a device versus your home kitchen and it’s definitely a challenge figuring out how to keep all the product in a studio. Luckily, we’re partnered up with Oakland Bloom and we have some space to store things. It isn’t a perfect system; I still need to take everything downstairs, drive to the spot and load in but al least it’s there. I don’t want to see my kitchen as an office. I will do what is necessary but I’d like to keep home and work separate somehow.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @tabachito
• Other: Venmo: @TABACHITO (please consider donating! We’re in need of a new stove at home. The one we moved in with is…..well, it’s here and it’s not ideal for the level of cooking I’d like to be at)

Image Credits

Lisbeth Sanchez (she/her/them)
Zara Ahmed (they/them)