The Journey to Success
A story about the Beltran’s Family business
Valerie and Cesar Beltran have failed before, but this did not stop them. After returning to Colorado from Mexico after the recession, they wanted more. They had raised six children and operated a business in New Mexico, so they did have entrepreneurship experience. The married couple came back to Colorado realizing they needed to start all over again. Starting with government jobs, but were very limited to what they could accomplish.
Cesar is from Chihuahua, Mexico, and Valerie Beltran is from Denver, Colorado. They each have two children from previous marriages and two children together. The family didn’t have much when moving back to Colorado. “I remember wearing the same five t-shirts to middle school,” says the youngest son, Alec. They rented a small three bedroom house in Thornton, the children didn’t know anything different from that lifestyle. Cesar and Valerie decided it was time to give their family more. It was time to bring in their entrepreneurship spirit. It was only a matter of time before they opened their own Mexican meat market in 2016 located in Northglenn, Colorado.
The doors of the meat market opened in December of 2016. While they ran a similar shop to the one they owned in Mexico, it took a lot more to introduce this concept into Colorado. They had to take out a huge loan in order to cover the expenses of the store. The market is filled with fresh butchered meats to purchase, a bakery section, grocery items and a small order counter where you can order your favorite kind of tacos. Valerie’s family has been in Colorado for several generations, before it was even a state. “Native Coloradans will find the green chili they love, here in the market,” Valerie says. They also make pozole and menudo fresh, daily, compared to other mexican spots who usually only offer them on the weekends. All six children helped open and work at the business. Cesar was used to running the business “the old-fashioned way,” but his youngest helped introduce more modern techniques to running the business such as utilizing social media. This lead them to being a big influence on Instagram and Facebook— filled with colorful food photos. These posts were shared and liked across Colorado. “Someday we hope to have a business built for each of our son’s to run.” Says Valerie. Well, it looks like that may soon be on the way, as the success of the market lead to the opening of a new location with a familiar concept.
When you walk into Beltran’s Grill located in Broomfield, Colorado, you will most likely be greeted with a friendly smile and smell the authentic flavors of good mexican food, like food from the market. The modern mexican design of the restaurant will surely catch your attention and give you a feeling like your in Mexico City. This is where you will find the best tacos, tortas, burritos, and other Mexican specialties cooked from scratch, every day. The family spent over a year trying to build the creation of their new restaurant. This was now two of the brothers, Aaron and Cesar Jr. who were going to run this business. One of the brothers, Brandon who has a job in IT does all their technology work, one of the brothers, Joe, does all the marketing work, and one of the brothers is their accountant. Together the family helps run both of the businesses. They use some of the same recipes and flavors from the market but in a new exciting environment. As they finally found a location, there was a huge obstacle that got in their way. The COVID-19 pandemic had just hit. This pushed back the opening of the business by 9 months!
Opening and operating a business during the middle of a pandemic was the last thing they thought would happen. The family applied for grants and with the support of the community they were on their way to overcoming this speed bump. With a huge list of regular customers from the meat market, everyone was ready to support this family and their business. The Beltran’s family opened the doors to Beltrans Grill in July of this year. With a successful beginning, and following of all regulations another speed bump arose. New COVID-19 regulations for restaurants were in place. The restaurant was forced to close down the inside and move to takeout and patio seating only. The family decided to build a patio area from scratch. They added new items to the menu to cater to family style meals such as taco boxes, enchilada platters, and nacho boxes, making business better than ever.
Typically, family owned businesses are thought to be as less innovated, likely to fail, lack of trusted advisers, and have family conflict involved. 70 percent of family-owned businesses fail or are sold before being passed on to the second generation. But not this family. They have shown how to not give up, how to overcome struggles, and demonstrated financial success. The Beltran family is a true success story showing how they came from nothing, to working together to build a truly amazing concept and business and they are not done yet.