Lou Castro creates what his TXQ Rubs call “Texas love” in the kitchen of a north Brownsville home nestled by a resaca. 

Castro’s kitchen serves as a laboratory for the mix of spices, powders and ingredients that make up his growing collection of rubs for meats, vegetables and Mexican pastas. The TXQ Rubs are now on the shelves of hundreds of H-E-B stores, meat markets and specialty shops across Texas. In 2017, it was just an aspiration. The dream was “born late at night on a driveway in Brownsville, Texas,” as stated on TXQ bottles.

The beginnings were modest ones as these ventures often are. Castro started out selling his first batch of rubs in 2017 from the back of his pickup truck at the Academy parking lot in Brownsville. Believing in his product, Castro entered local product pitch competitions in gaining contacts. He had some successes before moving on to H-E-B’s Quest for Texas. 

He then competed multiple times in the grocer’s best local products contest. Castro never placed among the top list of finalists in the competition, but he did make enough of an impression to gain H-E-B’s attention. His rubs eventually gained access to suppliers who stock H-E-B’s shelves.

By 2020, the first of Castro’s TXQ Rubs were making their way to H-E-B store shelves. It’s an accomplishment he says “gave me chills.”

“To see your product that you worked so hard on in a store like H-E-B, it was just amazing,” he said of seeing TXQ Rubs at the H-E-B on Paredes Line Road in Brownsville.

‘Echale A Todo’

How Castro got to being an entrepreneur with products in H-E-B stores is a story of many journeys from his kitchen to tinkering to TXQ Rubs.

He grew up in Brownsville as the son of one of Brownsville’s more prominent homebuilders. His father, Luis Castro, was one of two builders who developed Lakeway, a signature residential area in what was once considered the northern fringes of Brownsville. It’s where Lou Castro and his family now live.

In previous jobs, Castro was an educator, restaurant manager and worked in the food service industry. His word of the wise to younger people coming up in business and other fields is that disparate jobs include different skills that can be beneficial later in life. 

“Every bit of what I’ve done in the past has helped me to do what I’m doing now,” he said. “All of those past jobs have given me the skills and knowledge to run this business.”

Local Flavor

TXQ Rubs is a business that is distinctly Texan. Castro’s family of rubs are largely labeled by the area codes of the Rio Grande Valley, San Antonio, Austin and Dallas. On H-E-B store shelves, a shopper can see TXQ Rubs with a (956) label or perhaps a (210) in San Antonio or a (512) in Austin.

There is a larger TXQ Rubs bottle that says Echale! It’s a product made to sprinkle on rice, fideo, picadillo, and other Mexican pastas and noodles. The products labeled by area codes are meant to flavor fajitas, steaks, veggies, and in the case of the 956 variety, echale a todo (put on everything). Castro contracts with a manufacturer in San Antonio to produce all of the TXQ Rubs products.

“Life is too short for just salt and pepper,” Castro says in referring to the wide variety of garlic, spices, chili peppers, tomato powder and turmeric found in his products

‘The Next Big Thing’

The competition Castro’s products face is steep with 25 rubs originating in the Valley as compared to three when starting his business eight years ago.

There is always the need to innovate and add new products because, he says, customers and stores are always “looking for the next big thing.” Castro is nearing rollout of a pan de campo bread mix that will emulate the camp bread made by cowboys out on the range over campfires.

Getting to the just-right mix of ingredients that lead to a new product is trial and error, he says, and can sometimes come in days or take several weeks. He knows in his mind “where I want to go” flavor wise and works toward getting there with the help of his wife, Melissa. Products in hand, Castro hits the road, promoting his rubs at grocery stores, market shows and major livestock shows around the state.

“We have to be unique,” he said. “There are lots of people who make good rubs. We have to come up with stuff that’s unique in its presentation and product.”