When Chris Schultz joined Velvet Taco as CEO, he wasn’t walking into unfamiliar territory. With stints at Starbucks — where he watched the brand grow from 200 to 20,000 locations — along with Mod Pizza and Voodoo Doughnut, Schultz has spent his career building and scaling the kind of brands that inspire genuine devotion. So when Velvet Taco came calling, his answer was simple: “Hell yes.” On a recent episode of Fast Casual Nation, Schultz sat down with hosts Paul Barron and Cherryh Cansler to unpack what makes a cult brand tick, how operational discipline actually fuels creativity, and why clarity might be the most underrated word in the restaurant business.
For Schultz, cult brand status isn’t about clever marketing or sharp aesthetics — it’s about a predictable emotional outcome. “You go in as a guest, and you know what you’re going to feel,” he explained. “You feel very connected to the brand.” That emotional consistency is what separates a brand with a following from one with mere foot traffic. It’s also what he sees eroding at Starbucks — a brand he watched become a cultural institution before it began chasing too many directions at once. His prescription for Velvet Taco is the same one he’d give any operator fighting that drift: get back to clarity. Know exactly who you are, what you deliver, and what the experience feels like. When clarity is strong, he says, personality comes through — for guests and for teams alike.
Nothing captures Velvet Taco’s brand personality quite like the WTF — the Weekly Taco Feature, which has rotated in a new, chef-driven creation every single week for nearly 15 years. From a pot sticker taco launching this week to a beloved French dip taco returning to the permanent menu, the WTF is a masterclass in balancing innovation with operational rigor. Schultz is quick to correct anyone who calls it an LTO. “We say do it weekly,” he said with a laugh. But behind the irreverence is serious infrastructure: a supply chain team working roughly a quarter out, monthly taco tastings with Executive Chef Vu, and non-negotiable execution standards. “If the cooks can’t make it on a Friday night — whether here or in London — we’re just not doing it,” Schultz said. The WTF also gets a local twist at new market openings; a Carolina barbecue taco launched the week Raleigh opened, and a Chicago hot dog taco is already planned for the upcoming Wicker Park debut.
The concept of repeatability enabling creativity — not stifling it — runs throughout Schultz’s operational philosophy. Velvet Taco operates, as he put it, as “a full-service restaurant wrapped up in a QSR environment,” and that tension demands discipline across every touchpoint. Corn for the fresh elote is grilled off the cob daily at every location. Guacamole, salsa, and rice are all made in-house. The red velvet cake is baked fresh each day in a dedicated oven. And then there’s the Back Door Chicken — a rotisserie bird sold every Monday for $20 as a complete meal for a family — that traces its roots to the original Knox and Henderson location where whole chickens were literally sold out the back door. It’s a detail that speaks to who Velvet Taco has always been: a brand where culinary craft and genuine value aren’t mutually exclusive.
On the technology front, Schultz offered a grounded perspective that will resonate with operators navigating relentless pressure to automate: “Technology is a tool. It’s not a personality.” AI, kiosks, and analytics can remove friction and free teams to focus on the human moments that define the guest experience — but they can’t replicate the music, the vibe, or the emotional connection that makes a cult brand what it is. The challenge, as he sees it, is finding the middle road: leveraging technology for its operational upside without letting it strip out the heart and soul of what the brand delivers. It’s a balance every operator is negotiating right now, and Schultz’s years of scaling emotionally resonant brands give him a clear-eyed sense of where that line sits.
With seven new locations planned for this year — including outposts at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport, DFW, Orlando, and Atlanta, plus the Wicker Park opening — Velvet Taco is in deliberate growth mode, with a new market announcement still to come. But Schultz is just as focused on the foundation that makes expansion sustainable. Growth without strong retention, as he and the episode’s guest from Momos both underscored, is a leaky bucket. For Schultz, whether at 15 locations or 150, the test remains the same: can every guest, in every market, walk out feeling exactly what a Velvet Taco guest is supposed to feel? If the answer is yes, the brand is working. If not, it’s time to get back to clarity.
