WEBSTER GROVES, MO - August 22, 2026 (StLouisRestaurantReview) The restaurant group behind Session Taco has sold its longtime Webster Groves headquarters and commissary property for $1.55 million, marking another significant change for the St. Louis-based company as owners Adam and Jason Tilford reshape their restaurant portfolio.


Tilford Restaurant Group's former headquarters at 286 East Ave. in Webster Groves has been purchased by Hess Equipment Solutions, a third-generation family business that supplies commercial kitchen equipment. The property includes two buildings totaling nearly 13,000 square feet, according to reporting by the St. Louis Business Journal.


For Session Taco, the transaction represents considerably more than an ordinary real estate sale.


The East Avenue property had served as the operational backbone of the restaurant company for approximately a decade, housing corporate offices and a commissary kitchen that supported the growing Mission Taco Joint chain before it was renamed Session Taco.


Now, the restaurant group says it prepares food in-house at each of its remaining restaurants, reducing the need for a centralized commissary. The property sale comes amid a broader restructuring that has included restaurant closures and converting former Session Taco locations into new concepts.

Session Taco sells longtime Webster Groves headquarters.


The $1.55 million transaction provides an interesting bookend to the property's history under the Tilford Restaurant Group.


The company purchased 286 East Ave. in February 2016 for $620,000 from Crazy Bowls and Wraps, according to Hilliker Corp., which was involved in that earlier transaction.


At the time, Mission Taco Joint was growing rapidly.


The Tilfords needed more room for corporate operations and centralized food preparation, and the Webster Groves building provided both.


Crazy Bowls and Wraps had itself used the building for offices and commissary operations before relocating its headquarters to Olivette. Mission Taco then acquired the property and moved its corporate offices and commissary kitchen there.


The original $620,000 purchase price compared with the newly reported $1.55 million sale price represents a nominal increase of $930,000, or about 150%, over the price paid roughly a decade ago.


That comparison does not represent the restaurant group's profit on the transaction. It does not account for improvements, financing, transaction expenses, taxes, maintenance or other costs incurred during ownership. But it does demonstrate how substantially the property's sale price changed during the period the Tilfords owned it.

The property was once crucial to Mission Taco's expansion


To understand the importance of the Webster Groves building, you have to go back to Mission Taco Joint's early expansion.


Brothers Adam and Jason Tilford launched Mission Taco Joint in 2013 and eventually grew the concept into a multi-location restaurant group operating in the St. Louis and Kansas City markets.


As the restaurant count increased, centralized production became increasingly useful.


When Mission Taco purchased the East Avenue property in 2016, the company said it planned to use the building for its corporate offices and commissary kitchen. Its catering operation and food truck were also slated to operate from the Webster Groves facility.


The commissary allowed the growing restaurant company to prepare products centrally and distribute them to multiple locations.


That operating model made sense as Mission Taco rapidly expanded a largely standardized concept.


But the restaurant group operating in 2026 looks substantially different.

Session Taco now prepares food at individual restaurants


The most important operational detail behind the property sale is that the former commissary is no longer essential to the company's current strategy.


The Business Journal reported that each remaining restaurant now makes food in-house.


That is a notable change.


Central commissaries can create efficiencies for growing restaurant chains. Sauces, mixes, prepared ingredients and other products can be made consistently in one facility and distributed throughout the system.


But commissaries also create overhead.


They require a building, equipment, employees, utilities, maintenance, transportation and logistics. If a restaurant company operates fewer locations — or moves toward distinct concepts with different menus — the economics of centralized production can change.


Tilford Restaurant Group has been doing both.


Its Session Taco footprint has contracted, while some former Session locations have been transformed into entirely different Mexican restaurant concepts.


The result is a restaurant group that increasingly looks less like a single expanding chain and more like a collection of concepts.

Session Taco has gone through major changes


The sale comes after a period of considerable change for the company.


Mission Taco Joint itself disappeared as a brand in 2024.


The Tilfords renamed the chain Session Taco following a trademark dispute with Gruma Corp., the parent company of Mission Foods. The restaurant group described Session Taco as an evolution of the existing business, not an entirely new concept.


The restaurant portfolio subsequently began changing more dramatically.


Session Taco's Town & Country location closed in late 2025.


The company's large Kirkwood restaurant closed January 25, 2026, after the landlord and restaurant group agreed to let Session Taco leave before its lease ended.


That Kirkwood restaurant had been particularly ambitious.


Opened in 2020, the approximately 12,000-square-foot location included a restaurant, event space, arcade and a major tortilla-production operation.


The company installed a roughly $500,000 Casa Herrera tortilla machine there capable of producing as many as 10,000 tortillas per hour, according to reporting when the restaurant opened. The production operation was designed to supply restaurants and support wholesale tortilla-chip distribution.


Even then, however, the Webster Groves commissary remained useful. Mission Taco said the East Avenue operation continued producing flour tortillas, sauces and drink mixes while supporting its food truck.


Six years later, the restaurant group no longer needs that centralized arrangement.

Central West End Session Taco became Lapez Mod Mex


Another major change occurred in the Central West End.


Session Taco reopened at 398 N. Euclid Ave. in June 2025 after extensive reconstruction following a 2022 fire. The rebuilt restaurant had a larger kitchen designed to move cooking and preparation onto the main level.


The reopening didn't last long as Session Taco.


By the end of November 2025, the Tilfords announced that the Central West End Session Taco would become Lapez Mod Mex, a different restaurant concept inspired in part by their former Milagro Modern Mexican restaurant.


Lapez represented a move toward a broader and more contemporary Mexican dining experience rather than simply duplicating Session Taco.


The transformation also indicated that the Tilfords were rethinking their strategy of operating the same concept across multiple locations.

St. Charles location became Sobremesa


The restructuring continued in St. Charles.


Session Taco at Streets of St. Charles closed under that name in February and subsequently became Sobremesa, another Tilford Restaurant Group concept.


Sobremesa opened in June with a broader Mexi-Cali menu designed to accommodate families and larger groups better.


The change was significant because the St. Charles restaurant is large — approximately 7,500 square feet, with seating for 195 people inside and another 40 outside.


Adam Tilford had previously explained that Session Taco's more limited menu could make it difficult to take full advantage of such large suburban restaurants.


The new Sobremesa format offers items including fajitas, enchiladas and quesadillas, broadening the restaurant beyond the taco-focused identity associated with Session.


Taken together, the conversions show a company increasingly tailoring concepts to individual locations instead of forcing every property into the Session Taco model.

Session Taco returns to a smaller core.


Session Taco's own current website now identifies just three locations operating under the brand.


Two are in St. Louis: Session Taco - Delmar Loop at 6235 Delmar Blvd. and Session Taco - Historic Soulard at 908 Lafayette Ave.


The third is in Kansas City's East Crossroads Arts District at 409 E. 18th St. The company's official location directory currently describes Session Taco as operating two St. Louis locations and one Kansas City location.


That's a substantial difference from the company's earlier footprint.


When Mission Taco changed its name to Session Taco in September 2024, reporting identified eight locations in the St. Louis and Kansas City areas.


The Tilfords haven't simply closed every location that left the Session Taco system. Some have become new concepts, including Lapez Mod Mex and Sobremesa.


Still, Session itself is now a much smaller brand than Mission Taco was at its peak.

The strategy is shifting back toward Session Taco's roots


The remaining Session locations provide some insight into the company's direction.


The Delmar Loop and Soulard restaurants are smaller, established urban locations situated in entertainment-oriented neighborhoods.


That matters because Adam Tilford has previously said the concept worked particularly well in entertainment districts and that larger suburban restaurants presented challenges for Session's streamlined menu.


The company entered 2026 intending to refocus on those strengths.


Instead of pursuing restaurant count for its own sake, the strategy appears to involve retaining locations suited to Session Taco while developing other concepts for spaces that require a broader menu or a different experience.


Selling the Webster Groves commissary fits logically into that strategy.


A centralized production facility becomes less necessary as the restaurant count shrinks and the company's remaining locations prepare more food in-house.

The building has a long restaurant-industry history


Interestingly, 286 East Ave. isn't leaving the food-service industry entirely.


The buyer, Hess Equipment Solutions, supplies commercial kitchen equipment, making the property a natural fit for another food-service-related business.


The company is relocating to Webster Groves after approximately 30 years in south St. Louis, according to the Business Journal. The acquisition gives Hess two buildings totaling nearly 13,000 square feet.


The American Culinary Federation's St. Louis chapter now lists Hess Equipment Solutions at 286 East Ave., further confirming the company's move into the property.


That gives the building an interesting continuity.


It was previously the headquarters and commissary of Crazy Bowls and Wraps.


It then became the headquarters and commissary for Mission Taco Joint and later Session Taco's parent company.


Now it will house a business supplying equipment to commercial kitchens.


In one form or another, food-service operations have remained closely connected to the property for years.

From $620,000 purchase to $1.55 million sale


The property's financial history is also noteworthy.


Crazy Bowls and Wraps sold the building to Mission Taco for $620,000 in February 2016. At that time, the building was described as more than 12,000 square feet and already configured to accommodate offices and commissary operations.


A decade later, Hess Equipment Solutions purchased the property for $1.55 million.


The difference between those two recorded transaction prices is $930,000.


Again, that should not be confused with a $930,000 profit for Tilford Restaurant Group. Without complete information about financing, capital improvements, closing costs and other expenses, such a conclusion would be unsupported.


But the sale does mean an asset the restaurant group acquired for $620,000 changed hands about 10 years later for two-and-a-half times its original purchase price.


At the same time, the company is eliminating the ongoing expense and management requirements associated with owning a headquarters and commissary property it says it no longer needs for food production.

A real estate sale that tells a larger restaurant story


On its surface, the $1.55 million transaction is a commercial real estate story.


For St. Louis diners, however, it provides another window into one of the region's better-known restaurant companies.


Mission Taco Joint spent years expanding.


More locations required more centralized production, more infrastructure and ultimately more space.


The Webster Groves commissary grew out of that expansion.


Session Taco is now moving in another direction.


The company now operates fewer restaurants under its primary brand. Larger locations have closed or been converted into new concepts. Individual restaurants are producing their food in-house rather than depending on the Webster Groves commissary.


The sale of 286 East Ave. therefore appears consistent with a broader operational reset rather than simply an isolated property transaction.


Adam and Jason Tilford aren't leaving the restaurant business.


Instead, they have spent much of the past year reorganizing it.


Session Taco continues in the Delmar Loop, Soulard and Kansas City. Lapez Mod Mex and Sobremesa represent attempts to match different concepts with different neighborhoods and customer bases. And the centralized commissary that helped support Mission Taco's expansion is no longer part of the equation.


For a restaurant company founded on tacos and rapid growth, the $1.55 million Webster Groves sale marks another step toward a smaller, more decentralized and increasingly diversified Tilford Restaurant Group. https://stlouisrestaurantreview.com/session-taco-webster-groves-1-55m/