SABIN FAMILY AWARDED PRESTIGIOUS TACO TIME GOLDEN CACTUS AWARDS

Pictured in front of the Payson Taco Time restaurant: (left-right): Shandy Olsen, Misty Sabin, Ross Sabin (behind), Calvin Sabin, Jed Olsen (behind), Julie Sabin, and Kami Hurst.

A small crew works in an open kitchen, preparing orders streaming in through drive-up traffic which wraps around the vibrant stuccoed Payson Taco Time.  Super Soft Tacos, Big Juan Burritos, and Mexi-Fries, a local tater tot delicacy, are wrapped and then tucked into brown paper sacks handed to the lunchtime diners lining up outside.  Calvin and Julie Sabin, who co-own this and two other Taco Times in Utah Valley, step out from behind the counter.  They are soon joined by daughters, Shandy Olsen and Misty Sabin, on what is a typical spring day at the local fast food chain.

Only on this day, something extra special is cooking inside. And it’s not the daily special.  Two of the Sabins family’s three franchises had recently received the prestigious Taco Time Golden Cactus Award.

The Golden Cactus is awarded yearly to franchise owners whose Taco Time eatery is maintained with superior service and quality.  The Sabins’s restaurants in Payson and Spanish Fork each ranked high and well worth the honor this past year, and the family was presented their Golden Cactus honors at a March ceremony in a venue facilitated by food vendor, Nicholas and Company, in Salt Lake.

“They’re hard to get,” Julie said last week. Golden Cactus Award recipients must earn the honor, she said, as opposed to having been nominated and voted on by peers.

“They’re based on cleanliness, quality of the food, and customer service,” Shandy explained. She manages the Payson restaurant.

Customer feedback is yet another factor used to determine whose restaurant will receive the award, and they arrive arrive unsolicited.  “[Customers] just go out of their way to make the compliments,” Shandy said.

The quality and service warranting these awards arrived for the Sabins after a long experience working with and investing in the popular local fast food franchise.  After co-owning and running a cafe in Santaquin, the Kountry Kitchen, in the early 1990s, with mom, Maureen Clements, Julie started working at the Spanish Fork Taco Time, at the time located just off Expressway Lane. That was back when it was owned by Utahna “Tauni” Young, who also owned the Payson Taco Time franchise.

“I said to her one day, ‘If you ever decide to sell Taco Time, Tauni, I want it’,” said Julie.  “She just laughed at me- kind of chuckled. And then, two or three days went by, and she says, ‘Are you serious about buying Taco Time?’”

So long as the sale was made outright, and not on contract, they had a deal, Julie recalled.  With that, she and husband, Calvin, purchased the Payson restaurant, outright, from Ms. Young, in 2001.

They invested in the two additional franchises, in Spanish Fork and Nephi, in the years subsequent.   By doing so, they made not only an investment in their own economic futures, but those of their three children, who have since been made partial owners and current managers of each chain.

Daughter, Shandy, is at the helm in Payson, with Misty at the Taco Time in Nephi, which is currently being remodeled, and their son, Ross Sabin in Spanish Fork, each positioned to take over as owners once their parents retire. Though retirement is not imminent, when it does occur, Julie and Calvin will pass the investments to progeny raised in the business and who have followed a path tread by hardworking parents.

Shandy, Misty, and Ross have all worked at Taco Time since they were adolescents.   “Shandy started through Tauni, too,” Julie said, “when she was fourteen.”  

Misty started working at Taco Time as a youngster, as well, “in the Playland,” at the Spanish Fork Expressway restaurant, said Calvin, where she served as protector of the meek.

“When any of the big kids would go in and start pushing around the little kids, it was my daughter who had to go in and get them out of there.  So she was the bouncer!” her dad laughed with a hint of pride.

“You have to work hard,” Misty said of her long history working there. Work that, at times, seems endless, as unexpected needs are combined with the expected requirements of running a restaurant open seven days a week and now includes morning breakfast fares on the menu.

“Me, Ross, and Misty, all three of us work full time,” Shandy followed. “But, then, if there’s supplies we need to get or something like that, then we’re always there to get them.  So we’re pretty much always working.”

“It has its ups and downs,” according to Misty. “But it is fun.  You get to know a lot of people, meet a lot of people.”

Getting to know people in the community is a benefit Julie seems especially to cherish.  Working in Payson part-time these days, she prefers to do her job at the drive-through, Shandy explained, where she is able to meet the people the restaurant serves.

People who have become loyal customers, friends, and like family, over their deep investment in the community.  People like Clark Kay, who resides a short distant from the Payson Taco Time, the Sabins noted.  Others live far away, driving some distance to get there. Customers like a Mr. Parker, who bypasses town after town from his home in Provo, to arrive, like clockwork, to order his favorite menu items from the Payson Taco Time.

The appreciation the Sabins have for each other and the customers they serve extends to employees who work with them.  “It feels like, when you work here, you feel like family,” Shandy said.  “Because it’s a family run business and--you do--you feel like family when you work here. Most kids, when they leave, they still feel like family. They still come and visit us. We don’t call us team members. We call us family.”

“I’ll tell you what, though,” said Julie, “if it wasn’t for my kids, I don’t think I ever could have done it.  Because they basically do it now.  I just work part time and they are basically doing everything.”

“I told Misty one day,” Calvin said, “I give you the opportunity to write your own paycheck--it’s what I give them the opportunity for.  And I wish I had that when I was working as a mechanic, because I worked way too hard.”  Calvin’s role is as maintenance man today for the family’s Taco Time businesses.

“I’m grateful for it,” said Shandy.  “Sometimes it’s difficult, but that just, you know, comes with the territory.  But I’m grateful for it.  I’m glad my parents did it for me.”

The love and hope the Sabins have for their three children grew especially evident as the Golden Cactus Awards were presented last month. Julie recalled an outpouring of emotions expressed by a proud father when the ceremony took place. “I used to be rock hard when I was younger,” Calvin explained. “But I think that, as I get older, I am getting to be a softy.”