Thanks to Accion Southern California for sharing this story!
Mother-and-daughter Rosario Sotelo and Rodnia Attiq are the owners of El Borrego, the first restaurant in San Diego to serve lamb barbacoa. While El Borrego is now a full-service restaurant, they started out very small almost fifteen years ago by selling barbacoa under a tent in a driveway on the weekends. By word-of-mouth, Rosario and Rodnia’s customers started telling their friends about “El Borrego,” which means “the lamb.”El Borrego has continued to grow, but Rosario and Rodnia felt that their restaurant had untapped potential – a large parking lot where they envisioned an outdoor beer garden and open-seating patio area. The construction of the beer garden is an essential component of El Borrego’s growth plan, but permitting and other expenses threatened to keep Rosario and Rodnia from building out. To access the capital they needed to realize this vision, the women received a loan from Accion through the Brewing the American Dream partnership with Samuel Adams. The loan supports seven jobs and helped El Borrego to almost triple the restaurant’s capacity.
El Borrego recently catered Brewing the American Dream Speed Coaching on October 11. The event, which was hosted at Sempra’s headquarters, had more than 70 food, beverage, craft beer and hospitality entrepreneurs in attendance. Attendees received individualized coaching from experts on a variety of subjects including marketing, brewing, wholesale distribution, financing, and more.