Today we’d like to introduce you to Edwin Laydera.
Hi Edwin, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I am from Venezuela. I studied Mechanical engineering in the University and worked as an Engineer for 10+ years mostly in Oil and Gas. Since I can remember my passion has always been in the kitchen, I’ve always liked to cook and have dreamed of having my own restaurant since long time ago, for me it is a pleasure to see people’s reactions after trying a dish that I have made.
In February 2020 I decided to follow my dream and I resigned to my office job as a Consultant for Wood Mackenzie, then the pandemic came and everything shut down in March, so, basically I was forced to had a year just to develop the idea and to curate the menu,
I love Mac and Cheese and almost everybody does. I wanted to bring back us that Mac and Cheese Nostalgia but with high quality ingredients and combined it with the grown up palate and cravings for other types of comfort food.
I have been combining some of my favorite dishes with Mac and Cheese and the results have been amazing! Also, as Houston is such a diverse city, basically I have endless possibilities to do different bowls, I will start with this 8th and probably will be having also monthly specials (i.e: a turkey with cranberry and stuffing for Thanksgiving).
The Jefferson: Original Mac and Cheese
The Smokey: Smoked Brisket
The Macsala: Chicken Tikka Masala
The Vegitalian: It is a Veggie option, which has sun dried tomato, pesto, marinara, and mozzarella ovoline
The Porky: Pulled Pork
The Pastor: Mexican Marinated Pork
The Rocky: Philly Cheesesteak
The New Yorker: Pepperoni, pizza sauce and mozzarella
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The worst struggle so far is not finding staff, even we are offering a very competitive wage, every single establishment in the country is hiring, and for us as a new small business is difficult to hire, we can not offer what big chains does (benefits, college tuition, etc.), at least for now.
We are still in the learning curve so we can offer the best service to our community, also it has been really hard because we have not been able to find a team yet, my girlfriend is helping me a lot so we are just 2 people doing everything. We do food shopping, accounting, marketing, cooking, food prep and service, so because of this we have limited production capacity, and limited menu now( just offering 4 a week).
So far, Mac and Twist have been 2 months in business with an amazing response from Houstonians, we will keep learning to offer an impeccable service and the best Mac and Cheese experience in town.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My career for the las 10+ years have been as a mechanical engineer, business consultant, but from now on my career is the kitchen, customer service and to create new dishes. For me, cooking is an art, getting to people emotions thru food is an art and I am working everyday to perform that in the best way I can.
I think Mac and Twist sets apart from others first because of the quality of the food, we use real and nice types of cheese to cooked the sauce that is our base. Also, we use good meats for the mix. plus that we are working to also have a nice branding so you can feel that actually you have a perfectly tailored product in your hands. We want you as the consumer to fall in love at first sight with our branding and once you try the product you will taste that quality also.
Contact Info:
- Email: Hello@macandtwist.com
- Website: www.macandtwist.com
- Instagram: @macandtwist
- Facebook: @macandtwist
- Twitter: @macandtwist
Image Credits:
Edwin Laydera
