How You Can Invest in a Restaurant that Hopes to Open Downtown
Masa Taqueria food truck owner Jonathon Kirk launched a Mainvest campaign with a goal of opening a Spanish tapas-style restaurant.
Pastor tacos from Masa Taqueria.
The owner of Masa Taqueria food truck is hoping to open a brick and mortar restaurant in downtown Providence. Chef Jonathon Kirk is working on securing a potential spot to launch the business, he just needs to raise the capital in order to make it happen. Kirk has launched a Mainvest campaign to encourage investors to dedicate funds toward the project with the potential for a return on their investment.
Mainvest is a crowdfunding platform, governed by the SEC, that allows the public a safer way to invest in small businesses. Masa Taqueria has an investment target of raising $100,000 in forty-five days, and if the business doesn’t receive this amount by October 6, investors will receive a full refund. But if they do reach their goal, the business is required to share a portion of their revenue, at a 1.55 return rate, until investors have been repaid, with a deadline of the year 2031.
Kirk started his birria taco business with his partner out of his apartment during the height of COVID-19 in 2020 after losing his job in the hospitality industry. The business took off with fans pulling up to his apartment to get their taco fix, but it eventually became too big and the RI Department of Health cracked down on them, forcing them to shut down. Kirk was able to find an official and affordable commissary kitchen to operate the business legally thanks to a space being open in the Chi Kitchen facility in the Lorraine Mills. After that, Masa Taqueria continued to gain popularity and established a food truck.
Masa Taqueria has its sights set on a brick and mortar to bring the business to the next level. Kirk is zeroing in on the former Rosendale location in the Strand building at 55 Union St. in Downcity Providence. He hopes to curate a restaurant serving Spanish- and Catalonian-style tapas with a Mexican influence. There will be tacos on the menu, but a more elevated style, rather than the birria versions that his food truck is known for. There will also be plated tapas that will showcase Latin American cuisine as well as draft cocktails and Spanish wines. Kirk plans to continue to run the food truck at the same time. Masa Taqueria is currently serving tacos Wednesday through Sunday at Rock and Rye in Providence, Moniker Brewery on Wednesday, and the Guild PVD Beer Garden on Friday and Saturday. Learn more about their story here.
An example of a plated item, including beetroot and fennel tartare with egg, macadamia beet milk sauce, cilantro, jalapeño pesto, Spanish EVOO, and furikake with Mexican chiles and nori.
Most of the Mainvest campaign funds will be used for the restaurant space’s first month’s rent and security deposit, and the buildout, including equipment and decor. The Data Room on their Mainvest page reveals their plans for using the funding. It also explains the business’s financial forecast for the future and gives a good history of Masa Taqueria’s financial condition and past revenue. It’s up to investors if they are willing to take the risk to help invest in a small business that many say will breathe new life into a vacant spot in downtown Providence.
“People can go to the website and sign up, there are documents they can read over and you can look at our business plan, financial projections, financials from the last two years and they can make a decision whether they want to invest or not,” Kirk says. “Just like any investment, they can go up, they can go down. There’s no guarantee on anything and that’s explained on the platform.”
Kirk further explained how funds will be used to help renovate the interior. “Our plan is to take out the wall in the kitchen so we can open it up and put a chefs’ counter,” Kirk says. “We want to have a raw bar and a ham bar, and offer a couple of different styles of cured hams. There’s the jamón ibérico and jamón serrano that come from Spain. We want to offer a few different styles of that and base the menu around small bites.”
The current interior of the Rosendale.
Kirk is hopeful to attract people downtown with an affordable, accessible menu that may also highlight proteins like goat and game. And he’d also like to feed the hungry late night crowd after hours. “We want to be a neighborhood hangout that people can enjoy,” Kirks says. “We want to be open late night because there’s really nothing to eat after 11 p.m. downtown, and I’m hoping we can begin to revitalize that area and get people downtown late night more than just Fridays and Saturdays.” mainvest.com/b/masa-taqueria-providence
