Today we’d like to introduce you to Eric Gomez.
Hi Eric, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
We started out like most tour companies here, offering tailor-made trips all over Costa Rica. But around 2010, we noticed a massive blind spot: the entire industry was hyper-focused on the rainforests, ziplining, and rafting, completely ignoring the city of San José. There were virtually no walking tours or immersive market visits. We saw the city differently. We wanted to design an experience centered on the authentic daily life of locals, weaving in complex regional realities like Latin American migration, but connecting all those deep cultural dots through a universal language: food and local flavors.
Naturally, the road wasn’t easy. We had to figure out how to frame this narrative, train guides for a completely new concept, and sell it. Initially, we approached traditional hotels, but we didn’t have transport vans to pick up guests. Instead, we pioneered the ‘Meeting Point’ concept in Costa Rica—something hotels and traditional agencies flatly rejected, claiming it would never work. Realizing that door was closed, we pivoted and placed our bets on OTAs (Online Travel Agencies).
Then we faced the ultimate question: How do you make a tourism business work in a city that isn’t touristy, has zero infrastructure for group management, and on top of that, is incredibly expensive? San José didn’t have the blueprint for this. It took us four long years of intense trial and error—constantly testing, failing, and adapting—to finally figure out what resonated with travelers.
What made that experimental phase so perilous was the high-stakes balancing act. Throughout all that trial and error, we couldn’t afford a single bad review; our future relied entirely on building a flawless reputation from day one, even while we were still figuring things out. At the same time, cash flow was a constant nightmare. Generating enough liquidity to just keep operating was our make-or-break factor. It was incredibly stressful because we were barely scraping by, operating on razor-thin margins just to survive another day.
At one point, we grew to operating 15 different daily tours, and we guaranteed departures even if there was only a single passenger. It was exhausting and incredibly brutal because the company wasn’t turning a profit. However, it served as our ultimate masterclass—our personal university on how to run urban tourism. The sheer volume of knowledge we gathered allowed us to build a solid five-year business plan.
But then, the pandemic hit. The airport closed, and we faced zero bookings for a year and a half. It was devastating. We had to start from scratch with absolutely no money, as we had used up all our capital just to survive. Yet, we possessed a massive asset: we knew exactly what the market would need post-pandemic. We narrowed our focus down to our top three concepts. The roadblock was that most local spots were closed, making a traditional culinary tour nearly impossible. We realized we needed to control our own destiny by leasing our own spaces to serve as dedicated bases for our tours. The only problem? We had zero investment capital.
That’s when I spotted a historic house right in front of a very popular downtown park. It had a ‘For Rent’ sign. It sounds crazy now, but back then, I would literally walk past the house and take down the ‘For Rent’ sign so no one else would snap it up before I could raise the money. I eventually called the owner, pitched our vision to her daughter, and the mother loved the idea so much that she agreed to hold the property for us until we could afford the lease.
We wanted a beautiful, welcoming concept for our tour groups, and a corporate name like ‘San José Urban Tours’ just didn’t fit the vibe. That is how Mr. Sloth Coffee Shop was born. It became our first themed flagship location.
Fast forward to today, we have developed a highly unique, proprietary tour logistics model that has positioned us as the leading urban tour operator in the city. We now run three distinct locations dedicated to client hospitality—expanding our footprint into specialty coffee shops, restaurants, and cafes—with a dedicated team of over 15 incredible people. We also have a specialized hub inside the local market where we safely prep and clean fresh local fruits for our guests, directly pumping money back into the local economy.
Beyond the infrastructure, our proudest achievement is our human capital. We have completely revolutionized how we train our guides, instilling a radically different, community-first vision from what they were traditionally used to in the industry. Today, they feel a profound sense of pride to be part of our team and to represent the authentic heartbeat of San José.”
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Not in the slightest. It has been a grueling uphill battle, and we had to fight for every single inch of territory we won.
Our first major roadblock was industry rejection. When we pioneered the ‘Meeting Point’ model because we didn’t have vans, traditional agencies and hotels flatly rejected us, claiming it was a guaranteed failure. That forced us to spend four long years in a brutal phase of trial and error, trying to figure out how to manage groups in San José—a city that wasn’t built for tourism and is notoriously expensive.
During those four years, we walked a terrifying financial tightrope. Cash flow was a constant nightmare. We were operating on razor-thin margins, barely scraping by just to keep the lights on, all while carrying the immense pressure of needing flawless online reviews. We couldn’t afford a single mistake.
And just when we finally cracked the code and built a solid five-year plan, COVID-19 wiped us out. One and a half years of closed borders left us completely broke. Starting over from scratch, with zero capital, while most local businesses were permanently closed, was devastating. We had to resort to pure, raw grit—like me literally walking by an empty historic house downtown and repeatedly stealing the ‘For Rent’ sign just to buy myself enough time to scrape together the lease money before someone else took it.
Every bit of growth we have today was paid for with sweat, sleepless nights, and absolute resilience.”
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about San José Urban Tours?
What We Do & What We Specialize In
At our core, we are the pioneers and undisputed leaders of immersive urban tourism and hospitality in San José, Costa Rica. While the rest of the travel industry focuses almost entirely on the country’s rainforests and beaches, we specialize in showcasing the vibrant, authentic, and often overlooked heartbeat of our capital city.
We are known for our curated walking tours, deep-dive culinary experiences, and local market immersions. We don’t offer superficial sightseeing; we weave a complex, beautiful tapestry of daily local life, cultural history, and regional social realities—such as Latin American migration—and we connect travelers to these deep stories through the universal language of local food and flavors.
What Sets Us Apart From Others
Two massive pillars set us apart from any traditional tour agency:
Our Hybrid Brick-and-Mortar Ecosystem: We don’t just take people to external spots; we control our own logistics and quality by operating our own spaces. We created Mr. Sloth Coffee Shop, a beloved specialty coffee and dining brand that now features three flagship locations downtown, plus a dedicated hub right inside the central market. This allows us to safely and hygienically prep fresh local fruits and traditional dishes for our guests while directly fueling the local economy.
A Disrupted Guide Culture: We completely revolutionized how tour guides are trained. We threw out the traditional, dry historical scripts and empowered our team of over 15 locals to be authentic cultural storytellers. We focus on community-first tourism, ensuring our guides feel a deep, visceral sense of pride in their roots and their team.
What We Are Most Proud Of (Brand-Wise)
We are incredibly proud of our resilience and our transformation from a gritty, cash-strapped startup into a market leader. We survived a grueling four-year trial-and-error phase in a city with zero tourism infrastructure, and we survived a near-fatal 1.5-year pandemic shutdown by operating on pure resourcefulness and grit.
Brand-wise, we are proud that we walked away from dry, corporate naming conventions (like “San José Urban Tours”) to build Mr. Sloth Coffee Shop—a character-driven, warm, and inviting concept that travelers instantly fall in love with. We proved that urban tourism in a non-traditional city is not only possible but highly sustainable.
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
Something that surprises even our closest partners is that during our first four years, we deliberately lost thousands of dollars guaranteeing departures for just one single passenger. Mechanically, it made no financial sense to run a full-day urban tour via public buses, trains, and food markets for one person.
Our peers thought we were crazy, but we looked at it as a long-term investment in data. Those solo travelers became our most brutally honest focus groups. They taught us exactly how to navigate the city, what the international market truly cared about, and they wrote the foundational five-star reviews that built our entire empire today. We literally paid for our education, one passenger at a time.”
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sanjoseurbantours.com
- Instagram: @sjurbantours
