Raul Cantu, Owner and President, Nacho Mama’s Inc.
With their base in Texas, Raul Cantu’s family traveled with the seasons as migrant workers picking tomatoes in Florida, cherries in Michigan, cotton in Virginia and vegetables in Illinois. It was difficult, but he learned a valuable lesson.

“It taught me a lot about work ethics” Cantu says. “My family worked really hard for what they wanted. And I think that’s where I came from.”

He worked from age 11 through college. But he had decided that the migrant worker life was not for him. After managing several restaurants and a hotel in San Diego, he was offered a job at a hotel in Richmond. He sold everything he owned and moved here with two suitcases. After holding several jobs in the area, he was inspired to open a restaurant. He attending a SCORE program to learn about building a business, and opening Nacho Mama’s in Carytown in 1996.

Three restaurants had already failed in that location, and his friends and family cautioned him, he recalls. “But I had a great gut feeling that it was meant to be and that it was going to work.” It did, and the restaurant has proven a Richmond favorite.

Recently, Nacho Mama’s added a second location spanning 5,000 square feet in Mechanicsville at Pole Green and Bell Creek Road. The new Nacho Mama’s has been welcomed warmly by the Mechanicsville community and provides weekend entertainment with Karaoke on Friday nights.

In the community, Cantu has served as President for the Carytown Merchant’s Association and has donated more than 200 pints of salsa to the Virginia Blood Center for it’s “Pint for a Pint” blood drive.

He has returned on several occasions to speak about his business experience in SCORE classes as well as speaking at The White House for SCORE’s 40th anniversary. SCORE leaders, volunteers, staff and alliance partners, as well as dignitaries from The White House and the U.S. Small Business Administration gathered in the Indian Treaty Room. SCORE has honored Raul Cantu as the Rising Star in February 2004 highlighting Mr. Cantu’s business success.

Mr. Cantu continues to speak at local colleges to help motivate and inspire young men and women who would like to become entrepreneurs.