The Tipping Point: Chef who cooked for Obama on failing in business - and rebuilding again
Monday, 2 March 2026
Hundreds of failed businesses shut their doors every year - but behind every closure and liquidation are owners who had lofty dreams and ambitions. The Tipping Point tells their stories.
Former chef turned liquor connoisseur Luis Cabrera has reached highs in his business and career that not many have been afforded.
At the height of his culinary success, he was asked to cook for then-US president Barack Obama, hired as a private chef and using the Park Hyatt kitchen where he was staying during a visit to New Zealand. Cabrera made Obama a Mexican breakfast - although he initially did not know who he was cooking for, and Obama liked the food so much he asked Cabrera to be in a group photo.
But he has also had his fair share of lows, including seeing his hospitality business unravel after years of tough slog.
It’s an experience that he shares with so many others, especially after the New Zealand economy hit the skids in 2023-2024.
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The founder and former owner of Auckland-based Besos Latinos Restaurant and Ceviche Bar spent 12 years building his hospitality business, opening its second location in Auckland’s CBD after seven years and, at its height, employed 26 staff.
“Everything was going well until Covid”, he says, and then the business faced hurdle after hurdle. In the end he had no option but to opt to liquidate the businesses, says the Mexican expat.
“It was very tough making that call. It was a business that we created from scratch, and we put all our steak on the same grill basically, me and my wife.
“The idea of literally just walking out empty-handed was something that took around six months for us to process. It wasn't easy. We tried to find every possible way, negotiating the rent with the landlord and trying to get support from the government and then trying to negotiate with the people we owed money.”
His accountant told him it would take about seven years of basic trading just to recover, and only after that would he be able to start again from zero — a reality she described as the optimistic scenario.
“On one side was my human sadness and disappointment, and the other side was the black and white reality from the numbers.”
Rents were, as they often are, a contributing factor to putting the cost of running a business out of whack.
“Even through the middle of lockdowns, our rent just kept increasing,” says Cabrera. “My first business in Elliot Stables, the rent increased right in the middle of the first lockdown.
His accountant advised him that he’d be better off doing something else. After so many years working as a chef, he was still getting plenty of offers to return to restaurant kitchens, but the way the business had closed felt so traumatic he couldn’t imagine going back.
Cabrera says watching “the boat sink” was extremely difficult but he decided to instead focus on margaritas - something that he had made and served customers in the restaurants and Besos Margarita was born.
During the Covid lockdowns demand for his drinks grew, online and then through liquor stores.
“I knew that I had a product that my customer loved, that was manageable, and that I was able to literally start from scratch in my garage, so that’s what I started doing.”
Demand kept climbing and, once he was producing about 80 litres a week, margarita sales overtook the combined revenue of takeaways sales at his two restaurants. That, he says, was the moment he began to consider closing the restaurants and focusing solely on margaritas.
Fast forward to today, and Besos Margarita has become Cabrera’s sole focus and livelihood. “It is doing great. Now we’re in 500 stores nationwide, and even in duty-free at the International Airport.”
The business has begun exporting to Australia and the Pacific Islands and won 14 international awards.
Despite losing everything and starting from scratch, Cabrera says in hindsight everything happened for the better. “The best thing that I found is more life-work balance. I managed to spend more time with my little kids, eight and 11.
“When we had the two restaurants, basically we were making money to pay babysitters and after school care, and we were happy professionally. Business-wise everything was pretty exciting how it was developing and we were recognised as the go-to place for the ambassadors of Latin America whenever they had an event or something, but life looked very different to now.”
Cabrera says he wants others in business to know that business failure does not define a person - and hard times are all part of the journey running and operating a business.