When Juan and Cesar Aldaco opened the food truck Two Brothers Hibachi, the brothers told each other they would spend five more years in the food service industry before they would get out for good. They planned to save so they could put their efforts into other investments and move on.

Around seven years later, the pair is still working the food truck, and soon they plan to open a full restaurant with a sushi-bar area and an upstairs lounge.

“We got into the food truck industry so we could get out of food,” Juan Aldaco said this week. “We bought (the food truck) so we could make money and then get into real estate and investments, and then just go from there. We wanted to be entrepreneurs from the sense of being able to invest into other things, but we have had such a near cult-like following that we feel like now if we were just to close the food truck and walk away, we would not be able to live in this town. There would be an angry mob. We are doing all of this for our clientele. We know they love it. We do this for them.”

Even with the amazing following that keeps the food truck that generally operates from Tuesday through Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., the brothers never had a dream of becoming chefs. But, the journey into leading restaurants was natural.

“When you are young, the first job you get is like washing dishes and bussing tables,” Juan Aldaco said. “We were born and raised in Kansas until like 13-14. So my brother was used to working in the fields over there. At 12 years old, I was not old enough to get the field jobs. I remember being angry because him and my sister were working, and I could not work. We were always ready to work and wanted to work. I remember that from a young age.”

After moving to Texas Juan and Cesar began working in restaurants.

“The first jobs we could get were in the restaurant industry…washing dishes, bussing tables and stuff like that,” Juan Aldaco said. “That is where we fell into it. Neither of us really had a passion for cooking. I do not ever remember hearing when growing up, “I cannot wait to grow up so I can be a chef.” It was just what we ended up falling into just because we were eager to work.”

Later, that eagerness to work is what took Juan Aldaco out of college. When he was going to school in the Richardson area, he got a call from an old friend, the former owner of Johnny Carino’s in Sherman. Juan Aldaco was asked if he was available to work at a restaurant under his former boss. He took up the opportunity because he knew how far his work ethic would take him.

“The first month at my first job, I got employee of the month,” he said. “That was when I was like 16. I know how I work. So I was willing to drop out of college to be a dishwasher to eventually become a chef.”

While the Aldacos were working in the Mesquite area, the pair joined a community of Hibachi chefs. They stayed in a home called the chef house and would travel to different restaurants in the area to work.

“We would all stay there because the chefs were like Oklahoma, McKinney and then we were from Sherman,” Juan Aldaco said. “We would live in the chef house and at the end of the night we would just hang out there. We would all work to get as much experience as we could. I was the only learning chef at that time and they would show me their tricks.”

It was there that the brothers decided that whatever they were going to do next, they were going to do it together.

“At night, we would always talk about how we were going to take over the world,” Juan Aldaco said. “We would talk about how we were going to become rich. We would always have these conversations. We would talk about land being cheap and getting into various industries and side hustles. We always knew we wanted to do something. We knew we did not want to work for someone our whole lives.”

So after moving back to Sherman to work at a local Hibachi restaurant, Juan and Cesar Aldaco began cooking up ideas.

“One day, we were like, ‘Why don’t we open up a food truck?'” Juan Aldaco said. “The first thing we thought about was a taco truck. But, we realized how many Mexican food and barbecue places there are around here. They are a dime a dozen.

“One day, Cesar was like, ‘Why don’t we do Hibachi?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know. Why don’t we do Hibachi?'”

Two Brothers Hibachi was formed, and after operating at locations around Sherman like next to a gas station on FM 1417 and in the Save-A-Lot parking lot near the Wash Zone, the truck now rests at 5637 Texoma Parkway in the same parking lot as the future Two Brothers Hibachi restaurant.

“COVID helped us,” Juan Aldaco said. “A lot of restaurants were closing down. We were able to stay open. A lot of the customers migrated towards food trucks. It was great and it was a huge party. It was super busy. It was probably the busiest we have ever been. We had to hire more people. We were actually running another restaurant we had open, and we had to close that restaurant down to get that staff to help at the food truck because of how busy we were.”

Then the opportunity presented itself to open a brick-and-mortar restaurant.

“Getting into this building, I think it was the end of the COVID area when we found this building up for rent,” Juan Aldaco said. “We fell in love with this building as soon as we came to see it. Little did we know how much work this place would need. It was so old. It was crazy the amount of stuff we had to do. We had to break concrete, break down walls. We had to get a steel beam installed. We had to hire engineers. We had to go through like three different contractors. This has been a learning process for sure.”

Though the brothers are not ready to release an expected opening date for their two-floor restaurant, fans will notice the restaurant has been closed a couple of days this week as the site has had different inspections.

“When we do open the big restaurant, I am most excited about a day off,” Juan Aldaco said.

And as for the future of the Aldaco brothers in the food industry, they have plans and those plans too involve hard work.

We are still grounded and grounded to our roots. Just because we have a food truck and a restaurant going, we do not let it get to our heads,” Juan Aldaco said.

“There is nothing special about us. We are not culinarily gifted. Food is not a passion for us. There is nothing special about us. Luck was never involved in this. This has been pure gridiron hard work. Just watch how you spend your money when you open a business. The first thing people who start seeing success in their business want to do is buy a Corvette so they can put it on Instagram. But it’s about taking your money and putting it towards something that can make you more money. There is no luck involved. This is about good old fashioned hard work that got us here.”