For the Huerta family, the decision to go mobile with their tamale business ended up being their saving grace with more sales now than ever before.
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — You can spot food trucks just about anywhere in town and there are even festivals dedicated to them.
For the Huerta family, the decision to go mobile with their tamale business ended up being their saving grace. The family told 3NEWS they are generating more sales now than when they had their brick and mortar store front.
Along South Staples, you can’t help but notice the bus in what has become a calling card for tamales in all its orange glory.
“She said we’re across from Wal-Mart, I was expecting a building or something but its here,” said customer Norma Deleon.
For the Huerta family, the addition on wheels is a beacon of success.
“It was something we hadn’t planned when we closed the shop a few years ago,” said Lourdes Huerta.
The food truck’s growing popularity is something Lourdes Huerta never imagined.
“Just seeing my dad selling tamales out on the street, or in the community and just for him to have this established business is just really amazing to see it grow,” said Lourdes.
The family first set up shop in Alice, then in Corpus Christi.
It was back in 2019 parents Jose and Maria Huerta had to make the difficult decision to take a break from the tamale business after the lease expired at their store a couple of blocks away. But they soon realized they missed it and weren’t quite done. That is when they decided to take their tamales on the road.
“It served us a lot because when we had the business established we thought we were done but thank God the buses have served us a lot,” said Jose Huerta.
Their food truck has been parked in the Carmel Village shopping center for the last two months and every day you can find a line of customers that doesn’t seem to stop.
“It’s excellent! Very excellent! Thank God,” said Maria Huerta.
When temperatures drop like they did over the Christmas holiday, work inside only heats up, but their success hasn’t come easy.
“We had to be creative. There’s time business has been slow and we had to sell the tacos and give specials for a dollar but thank God they have responded. They do support us,” said Jose Huerta.
It’s taken a lot of dedication and early mornings.
“There’s very little sleep especially the week of Christmas. We start cooking at 2 a.m., takes about 3 and a half hours for each batch to cook so there are hundreds of tamales cooking at a time,” said Lourdes.
The family is thankful that hard work is now paying off, excited to see familiar faces return but also new ones.
Social media has been a big part of that driving factor, attracting first time customers like Brian Sparks.
“Found them online. We’re staying pretty close to here and I was looking for places and they got really good reviews so I was like lets do it,” said Sparks.
Now out of retirement and happy to be back serving up fresh tamales and smiles, the family said they are thankful for the community’s support.
“We’ve never thought negative, we’ve always thought positive that God always has something better,” said Maria.
The tamales are so popular, they sell out every day.
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