New restaurant owners build brand around tacos, margaritas

A significant amount of rookie restaurateurs don’t even make it through year one in the notoriously difficult industry. So for childhood friends, business partners and first-time restaurant operators Mitch Good and Matt Hess, getting to 13 months with El Melvin Cocina Mexicana, on Main Street in downtown Sarasota, is sweet success. Doing that in a pandemic for more than half the time makes it only sweeter.

‘Some restaurants go out of business when they get complacent and we don’t want that to be us.’ Mitch Good, El Melvin Cocina Mexicana