Like peanut butter and jelly or cream cheese and a bagel, tacos and craft spirits make perfect culinary sense.

At least, they do at Smyrna’s Painted Stave Distilling, which opened the Taco Jardin food truck in fall 2020, during a time of social distancing, outdoor dining and copious takeout ordering.

“The response was fantastic,” says co-owner Mike Rasmussen, BSPA05M. “From the first day, we had more business than we could accommodate.”

To grow the food operation, he turned (or rather, returned) to UD’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC), which had previously offered guidance on applying to one of the state’s premier grant competitions. Sponsored by the Delaware Division of Small Business, the Encouraging Development, Growth and Expansion (EDGE) Grant offers non-STEM organizations like Painted Stave up to $50,000 in funding (and up to $100,000 for STEM-based companies).

Though the pandemic suspended EDGE operations in 2020—including Rasmussen’s grant application to launch the Taco Jardin food truck—services resumed in 2021.

Once again, SBDC was there to assist, helping recraft the original start-up grant to focus on expansion and growth. With a $25,000 EDGE award, one taco truck now remains firmly planted at the Smyrna-based distillery while the other travels statewide, doubling reach and revenue.   

“As business owners, sometimes we live in our own heads,” says Rasmussen. “SBDC helped us see things from a different angle,” such as rethinking costs to account for increased travel time and staff hours, including the addition of two full-time and two part-time employees 

Today, the Blue Hen often points fellow small business owners SBDC’s way.

“It’s a great network,” Rasmussen says, “and it grows entrepreneurship for more and more people in Delaware each year.”