Del Presidente

People don’t call Shirlene Lopez the “bean queen” for nothing.

The president and chief operating officer of Lake Forest-based Del Taco LLC eats bean burritos with the company’s signature Del Scorcho sauce about four times a week.

“I’ve got hot sauce running through my veins,” she joked.

Lopez often makes impromptu visits to the company’s restaurants to make sure their beans are made fresh and up to par.

Being a bean aficionado is inevitable when you’ve been with Del Taco for as long as Lopez has. She’ll celebrate her 29th anniversary with the company this November.

Lopez has come a long way from her days mopping floors and wiping tables at Naugles, which later became Del Taco.

Today, Lopez sits atop of the second-largest Mexican fast-food restaurant chain after Irvine’s Taco Bell Corp., part of Yum Brands Inc.

Del Taco has yearly sales of $550 million. Since becoming president in 2006, Lopez has helped open more restaurants and come out with the chain’s edgy “Feed the Beast” marketing campaign.

Weathering Slowdown

Now she’s helping Del Taco navigate a slumping economy and high gas and food prices, which are hitting restaurants hard.

“It’s a tough time for our industry,” Lopez said. “We’ve seen economic downturns before. But the magnitude of the mortgage mess and high gas prices are making it very difficult.”

Del Taco isn’t able to pass on higher costs to customers as rivals are lowering prices and offering value menus to lure skittish diners.

Longstanding ties to local produce and meat suppliers allows Del Taco to get better deals on food, which helps the company keep its prices low, Lopez said.

Managing inventory is key, she said.

“We watch our restaurants very closely to make sure that we’re not wasting food,” Lopez said.

Del Taco, part of Nashville, Tenn.-based Sagittarius Brands Inc., has 510 company-owned and franchised restaurants in 18 states. Most are in California.

A good chunk of Lopez’s time is spent at Del Taco restaurants, she said.

“I’ve always had an open door policy,” Lopez said. “I love going to the restaurants and talking with the employees and customers.”

Lopez has “incredible street smarts,” Sagittarius Chief Executive Nick Shepherd said.

“She’s the absolute brand ambassador for Del Taco because she lives and breathes it,” he said.

Company HQ

When Lopez isn’t visiting restaurants, she oversees operations at the company’s headquarters off Bake Parkway. About 125 people work there.

She reports to Shepherd.

Del Taco is the third-largest restaurant chain based in Orange County, according to the Business Journal’s list of restaurant chains set to publish next week.

The company has about 975 workers at 67 restaurants in the county.

Del Taco has carved a niche as a Mexican-flavored burger chain. Its menu has burritos and tacos to cheeseburgers and French fries.

Rivals include Taco Bell, OC’s largest restaurant chain with about $1.7 billion in yearly sales, and McDonald’s Corp. and CKE Restaurants Inc.’s Carl’s Jr.

The fast-food business is the only one Lopez has known.

The Westminster native grew up with seven brothers and sisters.

She landed her first job at 14 wiping tables and mopping floors at Naugles, the Mexican fast-food chain that grew to 225 restaurants before it was sold to Collins Food International Inc. and took the Del Taco name in 1988.

“I had a best friend who worked at Naugles,” Lopez said. “I wanted to work there because I liked the food and I wanted to earn my own spending money.”

Early Days

Lopez said she took her job seriously from the start. She practiced taking orders at home with a Naugles menu and notepad.

“That was something I liked to do even though my brothers and sisters would always make fun of me,” Lopez said.

She worked her way up at Naugles and became a manager when she turned 18. A year later, she started training other managers.

Lopez said she faced skepticism early on as a trainer because she was young.

“A lot of the people they were hiring as managers were older than me so I had to know my stuff,” she said. “I had to know everything, even the ridiculous things that no one else would care about.”

Overcoming doubts as a young woman meant working hard, Lopez said.

“It didn’t matter that I was young and a woman because the industry is about performance and producing results,” she said.

She worked her way through two years of college at California State University, Long Beach, before quitting school to focus on her career.

“By that time, I decided that Del Taco would be my career,” she said.

The company also gave her a love life. She met husband Juan Lopez at Naugles.

The couple worked as managers before climbing the Del Taco ladder together. Juan Lopez since has left the restaurant industry for insurance, she said.

At age 25, Lopez traded in her Del Taco uniform for a suit and went to work for the company’s corporate office as a field representative.

The career move was unnerving, she said. Lopez wasn’t used to sitting at a desk, transferring calls or working a copy machine, she said.

“When you’re a manager, you’re used to being on your feet and wearing a uniform,” Lopez said.

The best part of her new role was that she got to visit restaurants, she said.

“I could relate to their situation because that’s where I came from,” Lopez said.

People wonder why Lopez has stayed with the company for so long, she said.

She credits her loyalty to Del Taco to the various positions she held at the company over the years.

“I was constantly challenged,” Lopez said. “That’s what kept it fresh to me.”

Lopez said her challenge now is keeping the chain fresh for customers.

This year, Del Taco plans to keep customers coming back by offering faster service, offering more products and making sure the food quality is consistent, Lopez said.

“In a tough economic environment people don’t have that much money to spend so they’re not eating out as much,” she said. “But when they do eat out they want a sure thing.”

Value Items

The company expects value menu items such as 59 cent tacos and Del’s Deal combo, which comes with two half-pound bean and cheese burritos, a taco and a drink for $3, to be winners.

Del Taco expects its “Feed the Beast” commercials to attract customers, Lopez said.

The company’s also looking to products set to debut next month to generate interest, she said.

It plans to remodel some 23 restaurants with an updated look later this year, according to Lopez.

“We’re pushing to end this year on a positive note,” Lopez said. “That’s a huge goal for us.”

Lopez, who lives in the Trabuco Canyon area, doesn’t have children of her own but has 25 nieces and nephews.

“Let’s just say they keep me really busy,” she said with a laugh.

Lopez doesn’t have plans to leave fast food any time soon, she said.

“I have a passion for this business and that’s why I stayed all these years,” Lopez said. “People don’t give this industry much credit. It takes a lot of hard work. But if you put in the effort you will be rewarded.”