Gustavo Reyes
Founder and owner, Gustavo’s Mexican Grill
Gustavo Reyes came to Kentucky from Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1999. His first job here was washing dishes in a restaurant in Nicholasville. He moved to the line, then to the floor as a server, and spent the next decade learning every job in a restaurant from the side of it that does not get thanked. In 2010 he opened the first Gustavo’s Mexican Grill in Crestwood.
What he built
Crestwood was followed by LaGrange, Prospect Village, Norton Commons and Hurstbourne, five family-run restaurants across Louisville and Oldham County, with a sixth planned for Old Henry Road in 2027. Every one of them cooks from the same recipes he brought from Guadalajara, and every one of them makes its salsa and queso in house each morning. He still owns all five. He still eats in them. He still has opinions about the salsa.
In 2020 he launched Vida De Reyes, a Mexican lager with a hint of jalapeno, poured at all five locations and carried by select retailers around Louisville.
How he runs it
Gustavo comes from a large family, and he built his restaurants to be the kind of place a family defaults to on a Tuesday: the same booth, the same server who knows the kids’ order, the same Tacos Al Pastor as last time. The Mexican art and folk crafts on the walls are his. So is the habit of showing up unannounced at any of the five locations and ordering off the menu like a customer.
He invests in training his own people and promotes from inside before he hires from outside, which is how a dishwasher in Nicholasville ends up owning five restaurants and why a cook at Gustavo’s can become a manager without ever working anywhere else.
Off the clock
He and his wife have three children, and the restaurants have donated to the schools, churches and nonprofits around them since the Crestwood days. Catering a school fundraiser was never a marketing decision. It is how a small-town restaurant became a five-location company.
Read the full story, find the Gustavo’s nearest you, or ask for him next time you are in. There is a decent chance he is in the building.