Pasta to go opens $600K stand-alone restaurant in San Patricio area

Puerto Rican fast-food franchise Pasta to go opened a 30,000 square foot restaurant, its first with a drive-thru window, this weekend at the San Patricio retail area in Guaynabo, for which the company invested $600,000.

The dining area can accommodate 40 customers, and the location offers 36 parking spaces.

“This is the largest business project we have worked on as a team, the one with the highest investment and the best result. We haven’t officially opened, and we have had good sales every day since we had our soft opening last week,” said Puerto Rican businessman Luis González, CEO of PTG Global Enterprise, the restaurant chain’s parent company.

The new location generated 16 direct jobs and about 30 indirect jobs between contractors and subcontractors.

San Patricio’s Pasta to go is in a location that was abandoned since Hurricane María in 2017 and was used by the homeless and drug users. The rehab cost twice what partners Carlos Rodríguez, Enrique Domínguez and Roberto Soto de Cueto originally would be, they said.

Pasta to go got its start as a cart in 2001 at the Amelia Industrial Park in Guaynabo, which is still operational. The company went through a corporate shift when PTG Global enterprise entered the picture and is heading an aggressive expansion plan, officials said.

Last year, Pasta to go opened a location at the Plaza Carolina food court and is planning its next locations — at the Plaza Centro Mall in Caguas and Rexville in Bayamón — later this year. Plans call for an off-island expansion into Central Florida and Mexico later this year or early 2024.

The company is seeking investors to participate in any of the business options, through its closed franchise model.

“Any investor has an opportunity to enter the business. This is a closed franchise business model because the founders keep 100% control of the business,” González said.

“The new investor together with our advice chooses the place and the type of model and we do the rest. The investor will get compensated as established in the contract.” He added.

So far PTG Global Enterprise has its four principal partners and about five investors, who are all Puerto Ricans, he said.