Professionals Serendipity 
El Burro Cantina is the best— and only— Mexican restaurant on the mountain. Longtime owner Marcus McKay spills the beans on the secrets and success of this unique Tamborine icon.
by Kyle Hitchmough
What do you think El Burro Cantina really provides to the area?
It’s a place of celebration, definitely. We like to work with parties. We’ve got all of the hats, all of the ponchos, everyone’s encouraged to put those on when they come in. My wife is a front of house professional, she’s quite an animated beast and she’s really into creating a big atmosphere. She has worked in hospitality on Mount Tamborine for many years in different places, so she knows a lot of people up here. She likes bringing them together and helping them with their celebrations, and that’s something we’re gonna push forward with in the future, we’re going to start focusing more on birthdays and celebrations.
How did El Burro Cantina get started?
Johnno, my business partner, and I have been in hospitality for many years having worked in restaurants and bars, all sorts of things. We’ve lived up here for a few years, and Tamborine is a lovely, artistic community. We just wanted to add something that we can enjoy doing, something cultural rather than another pub. Something more interesting. And this is the result. There was a hole in the market. We have, and had, Indian, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, a pizza shop, a modern Australian, a couple of pubs, the options are getting withered down – and Mexican is really approachable food, a lot of people like it. We saw a need and jumped at it.
What’s your most popular menu item?
Fajitas. It’s got all of the action. You get a few tortillas, and then some fillings— and then your meat, or hot component, we do vegan as well, comes out on a sizzling platter. It’s theatre in terms of a restaurant, it smells really smoky, everyone oohs and aahs, they love it.
What goes into an average workday for you?
I do a couple of hours work from home, doing things that need to be done to keep the business running, then I come in here about midday and prepare food until we open at 5. Then we do service until 8, clean down and get out of here at 10.
Do you have a more common kind of customer over any other?
It’s primarily a local market. The tourists are starting to find us but we are still mostly local. That was what we set it up for: to service the local market primarily. We’ve got a few different categories. The families like us, especially early in the night or during the week. It’s a pretty broad spectrum. We also got several regulars who are well into retirement age, and a whole lot of people in between. Twenty somethings out with their friends, groups of empty nesters… we cover the whole gamut.
Is it true that you make and sell your own hot sauces? What’s the most popular?
Yes, we make six different hot sauces, they’re all for sale, and they are used in the restaurant as well. Anyone can help themselves to any of them. It’s generally the hottest one that’s the favourite, the Carolina Reaper, it’s made from the hottest chili in the world. It’s the one that mostly sells because if you like your hot sauces, then that’s what you’re going for.
What’s your opinion on the Mount Tamborine area and community?
I’ve lived up here on and off for twenty years. I love Mount Tamborine, it’s a great community, tight knit, but always growing. That was one thing we really liked when my wife and I moved up here. There’s always new blood being brought in, and it can be interesting new blood. It’s always been a fairly international community, can be quiet, there’s a village sense, yet it is big enough to sustain a level of commerce and culture, but not so big that it becomes a city, with all the trappings of a city.
Do you work with any other businesses on the mountain?
We do a little more with Witches Falls Winery than anyone else. We use local business for food supply like Joseph the greengrocer uptown. We’ve got great relationships with all the people up here, but not a lot of direct business links other than Witches Falls. In each category we’ve got one wine from South America, but other than that everything’s local, everything’s mountain produced. We do try and support locally.
What do you enjoy most about doing this?
Making people happy. Just seeing them happy. They come up and tell me how much they loved it, that’s great. That’s it.
What’s your most memorable experience from working here?
Each year we celebrate Cinco de Mayo. We always do chili eating competitions. We generally have about fifteen different chilis and people eat them in sequence from mildest to hottest. Nothing crazy specific happens, but just watching that, and then the hot wing eating competition— and we douse all those in Reaper sauce. Watching six big burly guys trying to see how many they can get in there… I won’t go into too much detail!
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Or email the writer at kyle.hitchmough@hotmail.com, and follow me on Twitter @realcasualrvws.
