Meet Pablo Bonacic of Subculture Urban Cuisine and Cafe

Today we’d like to introduce you to Pablo Bonacic. 

Hi Pablo, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers?
We started our first jobs in kitchens here in Nashville. My brother and I have had much experience working in the industry. I was living in Colorado when I decided to go into a full-time entrepreneurship, I bought an old truck from a linen company and build my first food truck all by myself. I did really well with that but I realize if I was going to be successful, I would need a team. So, I decided to move my young family out to Nashville but my brother and I would join up and start something that would be lasting. 

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
We have had much success, especially early on so I feel very blessed because I know there are obstacles I have avoided. The biggest obstacle by far has been since Mar 2020. We had just started a permanent standing food truck in West Nashville in the beginning of 2020 and by March we first shut that because of the tornado (we didn’t get hit but it hit so much of downtown we were close to) and right after that the big shutdowns happened. We just said OK to the loss of the second location, and focused our resources on providing for our local community and our staff. 

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Often, people who have heard about us, have heard of a particular menu items, and it definitely causes then to only associate us with that genre. (Friend: “They have the best Hot Chicken Tacos!” Customer comes in thinking we are a hot chicken restaurant. Or Friend: “Oh I love their empanadas!” And customer comes in craving queso fo a pan-Latin food experience.) I would love for more of our customers to understand that we really just cook with love, from what we love. Sure, we are from a South American country- but we grew up learning to cook in the South. Yes, we know how to rock the heat levels but we know how to create a fresh, super healthy salad. Our strength is in our eclectic spin. 

Risk-taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
Risk is great but only works if you do whatever you can to minimize your exposure to downfalls and have enough margins when the tides turn. Lots of people like to talk to business owners about taking the risk. But few like to talk to people about how they minimize the risk so they can actually succeed. 

Thinking about the risk versus reward scenario is very important. You have to have a good plan to ensure as much as humanly possible that you will actually get the reward you’re looking for. Or it’s not a risk you’re just jumping off a cliff. 

I definitely took a rest because we sold our home and uprooted our lives in order to make the business happen. But all the steps really created the capital we would need to minimize the risk we would need to go from having a food truck into a brick-and-mortar store. 

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: https://subculturecafe.square.site/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/subculturecafe.nash?utm_medium=copy_link
• Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/subculturecafe/
• Twitter: Subculturecafe