WTOP celebrates National Hispanic Heritage Month this Sept. 15 through Oct. 15, with stories spotlighting the contributions, culture and accomplishments of Hispanic communities across the D.C. region.
From the outside, La Tejana in D.C.’s Mount Pleasant neighborhood is inconspicuously humble — from its windowsill and stool eatery to the retro font on its banner. But, on the inside, you’d see a chorus of women cooking Michelin-grade breakfast tacos in a tiny kitchen and homages to co-owner Ana-Maria Jaramillo’s Tex-Mex roots.
Jaramillo — the daughter of Colombian immigrants — grew up in Monterrey, Mexico, before eventually moving a bit north to the border town of McAllen, Texas.
“(It’s) the birthplace of the breakfast taco. It’s like the Mecca of Tex-Mex,” she told WTOP.
During a visit to her hometown, Jaramillo took her now-husband and coworker, Takoma Park-native Gus May, to one of her all-time favorite breakfast taco joints.
“He takes a bite, and he’s like, ‘Oh my god. What is this? I have never had a tortilla like this. I have never had eggs like this,'” she recalled. “He was like, ‘We don’t have anything like this in D.C. If you and I stay together … and you end up moving to D.C., we have to open up a breakfast taco shop.'”
A few years later, they were growing the business from their front door step — literally. The two began their journey doing pop-ups and selling and delivering fresh tortillas during the pandemic.
“I don’t know how, it became this cult thing. Very quickly, everybody was ordering via (direct messages). We were selling 700 tortillas in one day, all over D.C. — not making money!” she said. “We were there, waking up at 3 a.m., making 700 tortillas in our apartment … driving all over, dropping them off, and doing it again the next weekend.”
From there, the business’ cult following led to the couple selling out pop-up after pop-up. As its clientele base grew, they knew they needed to think bigger.
In August of 2022, Jaramillo and May opened up their first brick-and-mortar location at 3211 Mt. Pleasant St. NW, and in November of 2023, won a Michelin Bib Gourmand award with judges citing its great food and reasonable prices.
“These are uncomplicated, unfussy bundles of joy that don’t take reservations or require any other kind of long-term planning,” the Michelin guide said of the restaurant.
Mentions of McAllen and Mexico blanket the walls alongside a simplistic menu touting only eight options featuring cheesy scrambled eggs, a slew of sauces, veggies and meats reflecting core Tex-Mex staples. The tacos vary from vegan and vegetarian options to the perfect meals for meat-lovers. They also come with a flight of side salsitas — cilantro crema, charred tomato, as well as the à la carte avocado tomatillo and habanero salsa.
Its prices range from one taco for $4.50, three for $13 and six for $24.
‘Putting out fires’
La Tejana just celebrated its two-year anniversary and lines around the block prove the restaurant has cemented itself in the D.C. foodie scene.
Although she’s incredibly grateful for their success, Jaramillo said it didn’t come without challenges.
“Half of the responsibility you have as a restaurant owner is putting out fires,” she said. “Besides the financial piece — that’s one part of running a restaurant — it’s also finding an amazing team that respects you and respects the vision.”
On top of limiting employee turnover by paying livable wages, Jaramillo said operating a small business was at times “virtually impossible” with roadblocks put in their way by the D.C. government.
“The amount of times I had to call DDOT and ask about permitting the sidewalk just to be able to get a streatery out there. That was like a six to eight month process, because nothing online was working,” she said. “If I’m having a hard time understanding how to open or apply for a grant, can you imagine how (people with less proficient English language skills) are struggling?”
According to national data, in 2022, 54% of the District of Columbia’s restaurants were owned by minorities, and 19.4% of the city’s population speaks a language other than English at home.
“Hispanic Heritage Month, to me, really is an opportunity to support, financially, all of the businesses that are owned and operated by Latin people in this community. I think there’s not a lot of emphasis on the fact that immigrants, specifically Latin American immigrants, carry the restaurant industry on their backs every single day,” she said. “I think if every Latino worker were to quit, every restaurant would shut down in this country.”
Bolstering their business were the customers (both new and old) that stuck by them over the last two years. Jaramillo said when the couple started the pop-up in their neighborhood, they often saw recurring customers who would come back every weekend.
“I’ve never felt that in any neighborhood that I’ve lived in my life, and I think just being part of that, I was like, ‘Gus, there’s no other place that we can open a brick and mortar. It has to be in our neighborhood. This is where we live. This is where we have roots,'” she said.
“When this place became available, it was like a no-brainer. Was the kitchen too small? Sure, but, for us, it’s worth the sacrifice to be able to be part of the community here,” she added.
What’s next?
Outside of the restaurant, Jaramillo works full-time as a pediatric speech pathologist and part-time as an adjunct professor at George Washington University in the college’s Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences.
She said her husband was the one with the restaurant industry skills but her “dream was to always have a clinic and serve the immigrant population in the DMV.”
At her clinic, Voz Speech Therapy, she works with bilingual children that have physical and mental deficiencies and focuses on dropping the barrier between access to health care and the local immigrant community.
“When La Tejana was still a pop-up, and I still kind of had a grip on things … it seemed kind of seamless for me to open the clinic. It’s been really, really challenging juggling both of my lives,” Jaramillo said.
Even though she wears multiple hats, Jaramillo still has her eyes on the next thing for the restaurant. After adding a cocktail bar to its upstairs space earlier this year, La Tejana has plans to expand to a second location.
Their tortilleros in the kitchen make nearly 6,000 tortillas a week, according to Jaramillo, but they have no plans to return to their original format of selling just tortillas because, she said, “we can’t keep up with the demands, and the tortilleros can’t work any harder.”
Where they’ll be opening their next location is still up in the air, but Jaramillo said one thing they’ll definitely need is a bigger kitchen.
“We want people all over D.C. to have access to (our tacos),” she said.
“The goal is just to continue to feed the city with the best, most legit, authentic, Tex-Mex breakfast tacos that you can get, and filling people with happiness. … We’re really proud of what we do at La Tejana every day,” Jaramillo added.
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