Some convenience retailers come up in the business—others are drawn to it seemingly out of the blue. Such was the case for K.C. Ueberroth, owner of Yo!Boca!Taco! with locations in Wayland and Sturbridge, Massachusetts.

The now-owner had worked in a family hotel business for 15 years when he decided to relocate across the country from the West Coast.

“I saw a picture of the gas station and was drawn to it. I didn’t even know where the town it was located in was,” said Ueberroth. “I had no experience in the business when I got into it, but I thought I could use my marketing skills.”

When he took over the business, he discovered that “there were many more complications” than he expected. “People felt like it was just a gas station. The c-store was stripped down, and so I wanted to make the c-store more relevant,” he said. He changed everything in the station and started selling tacos out of an unused section of the store. Yo!Boca!Taco! opened in May 2022.

Word of Mouth

The rent for the building was going up, and Ueberroth had extra interior space that wasn’t being used. When a friend suggested putting a taco truck outside, he did some research. “Personally, I love tacos. But it was complicated to do—there were limitations on food trucks within the city,” he recalled.

Instead, he studied the Dunkin’ model. “They owned the area. My biggest competitor had a Dunkin’. I thought, ‘how could I do this inside the store, but with tacos?’”

The thought ignited his taco quest. “I tried every taco place in Boston. I found the best one and asked if they would mentor me,” he said. That shop—in his opinion—was Taqueria El Amigo, whose cooks from Tijuana, Mexico, taught him what sauces were popular and how to set up a kitchen.

“I had $50,000 total to spend total, so I had to get creative to set the kitchen up,” he said.

With some more advice from Carlos Magalhaes, the founder of Fuel America Coffee, under his belt, he started serving the original Yo!Boca!Taco!

“We kept it simple—a Mexican style street taco. Then, we ended up working with a vendor from Mexico and decided to introduce burritos,” he said. “We also do a breakfast taco that is popular. No one else does a breakfast taco around here.”

People are blown away by the tacos that pop with flavor, Ueberroth said. “Our tacos are moist and juicy. People want to buy the meat.”

The key to the success of the food is the quality of the ingredients, he added.

“My biggest competitor had a Dunkin’. I thought, ‘how could I do this inside the store, but with tacos?’”

“We use an award-winning tortilla company. We use made-from-scratch black and pinto beans as well as homemade rice,” he said. “It’s kind of like a band. You put a world class drummer next to a world class bassist and they are going to play well together. It’s why we end up voted as the best burrito in the state. I’m not a chef, but the one thing I’m good at is the details and I pay attention to what works.”

Soon, word began to spread about the store’s tacos and a viral TikTok video put Yo!Boca!Taco! on the map.

“A guy named Matt Shearer from WBZ radio reached out to me. He has a big following and we got one million views from his video,” Ueberroth said. “Then we got really packed. People made trips out to see us and we were doing double the sales.”

That lead to other media, including a feature in the Boston Globe. “We kind of became media darlings. I was a marketing guy, but did no marketing,” he said.

The Perfect Combo

However, if you have great food, you want everyone to know about it. Ueberroth came up with the idea for Pass It On, a program where he surprises people by bringing them lunch or breakfast from the store. “We ask them who they think should get the next order. Rather than spend the money on virtual stuff, go meet your neighbors,” he said.

Ueberroth gets a kick out of seeing the expression on the faces of first-time customers who can’t wrap their head around a gas station having great food.

“It’s fun to watch them come into the gas station. They’re surprised to see food, and when they find out we have tacos they wonder what universe they have stepped into,” he said.

He said the customer base is also very diverse. “We’ll have a grandmother in line along with blue collar workers. A lot of our employees are Latin American, and people come in and like to speak Spanish with them,” he added.

Customers are also often struck by the sense of fun in the store—and by Ueberroth’s drawings on the walls.

“When I was growing up, I liked art. We were working on logos and designs with an artist, so I drew up a few ideas and he suggested using my art,” he said. “I draw pictures of people who come in day in and day out. Certain people really want to be up there. It’s an unwritten thing. The drawings are fun and playful,” he said.

Ueberroth recently opened a second location in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. “It’s 45 miles away on the border of Connecticut. It’s so far away that no one knew us, but people still liked us.”

He estimates that he’s made at least 100,000 tacos and is now looking toward the future. “I have a lot of bucket list items—it would be fun to own the land and gas station and have my own brand of gas,” he said. “I’d also like to work with other stations to help them. I could help a lot of struggling c-stores that are underperforming, help them build a brand and help turn things around.”

For aspiring business owners, he said that adding food to a gas station is the perfect combination because it allows you to offer affordably priced food—a key traffic driver as Americans cut back on eating out due to inflation pressure.

“The gas allows you to offset the food cost and balance the pricing. Eating out is a luxury now. We want to make the price affordable for everyone,” he said. “It’s a big deal to be able to offer customers a good value.”