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‘Our Light Is Always On’: Even A Pandemic Won’t Stop Local Tamales Shop

The tamale crew consists of two people who spread the dough on the corn husk, and two others who fill it with meat or chicken, before folding it together. A batch of tamales is piling up in the right corner. There are Tupperware filled with dough and meat.
Keren Carrión
/
KERA
The tamale crew consists of two people who spread the dough on the corn husk, and two others who fill it with meat or chicken, before folding it together.

The aroma of salty flour mix, corn husks and meat drifts all the way out to the parking lot of Dallas Tortilla and Tamale Factory, an old red brick building in Red Oak, Texas.

“It’s the smell. When our guests would come in they would close their eyes just kind of soak in the smell of the food cooking,” said Lena Leal, part-manager of the shop.

Lena’s family, the Leals, own three stores in North Texas: one in Red Oak, another in the Dallas neighborhood of Oak Cliff, and the other in Grand Prairie.

Tamales are wrapped in corn husks to add flavor and make sure they don’t fall apart while they cook.
Keren Carrión
/
KERA
Tamales are wrapped in corn husks to add flavor and make sure they don’t fall apart while they cook.

Pre-pandemic, Lena said people would wait up to four hours for a batch of their homemade tamales. According to her, the smell of Dallas Tortilla and Tamale Factory’s tamales transport their customers back home.

“They would say ‘oh my gosh my grandma’s house, oh my gosh my uncle, my ‘insert family relative that they remember’ and that is the thing that gives my dad and I a surge,” she said.

The shop is just on the outside edge of its busiest season. People stock up on tamales, hoping they will last the holidays, which in most Latinx cultures include Christmas, New Years and Three Kings Day, a holiday celebrated the first week of January.

At the shop the phone rings incessantly. Workers zoom from one side of the shop and run outside to deliver tamales into cars as part of their curbside option. In the back, cooks spread the flour mix on a corn husk and stuff them with the filling as fast as possible. There are pots on top of stove tops. Most pots hold about 25 dozen and cook for about two hours.

Local Family-Owned Tamales Shop In Dallas Keeps Running Amidst Pandemic

“Pork is king but chicken has actually gained like crazy popularity in the last few years,” said Lena.

The factory sells many kinds of tamales: jalapeño pork, jalapeño beef, chicken, beans and cheese and a sweet raisin. To distinguish them all, the Leal family has implemented a labeling system and place different colored stickers on aluminum trays.

A Look Back At The Business’ Seven-Decade History

Most of the workers at the shop are related. Dallas Tortilla and Tamale Factory has been part of the Leal family for three generations and has a rich history.

“When people bite into our tamales, they are biting into 1950,” said Lena.

The business started in Lena's grandmother's kitchen 71 years ago. While Lena's grandfather Jose Ruben was off fighting in World War II, her grandmother Elvira started making these Mexican goodies for family and friends.

“Elvira was something else,” said Lena. “She ran four boys and a business all at once. She was a millionaire in the 80s, she was Hispanic, she was a woman.”

When Jose Ruben returned from war, the couple opened their first shop in what was then Dallas’s Little Mexico District. At the time, the Leal family was one of the first Mexican families to start a business of its own in Dallas.

An assortment of photos and frames hang on the main wall of the shop. A photo of Elvira Leal, the founder of Dallas Tortilla and Tamale Factory, is front and center.
Keren Carrión
/
KERA
The woman who started this family-owned business was Elvira Leal. Since her death, her four sons, including Matias Leal has taken over.

“One of the reasons we are so adamant about our business is because we saw my mother and my father have a hard time starting out,” said Matias Leal, owner of Dallas Tortilla and Tamale Factory and Lena's father.

Elvira retired from the factory after her husband Jose Ruben died, but the business didn't die with him. Their four sons stepped up to manage day-to-day operations, including Matias, the youngest.

“You have to think about it, a Hispanic woman starting a business in 1949 was unheard of,” said Matias.

Finding Solid Ground Amid The Pandemic

According to Matias, everything cooked at Dallas Tortilla and Tamale Factory is done with a precise purpose.

“We don't just throw everything willy-nilly. We weigh everything,” he said. “We cook the meat, we make the tamales, we cook the food, we cook the beans, we cook everything here.”

The family has a system to keep track of their curbside orders and how many tamales they have left to sell. Matias (left) points at the batches of tamales in front of him and an employee (right) writes the number of dozens that are left of each kind on the white board.
Keren Carrión
/
KERA
The family has a system to keep track of their curbside orders and how many tamales they have left to sell.

As the pandemic unfolded, many restaurants suffered. Dining rooms were temporarily shuttered and once they were allowed to reopen, in-restaurant dining was limited. At first this worried the Leal family, but they leaned in to their to-go option of selling tamales.

“We don’t have sit-down so our business increased so the other people who couldn’t make it to other restaurants in this area, they came to us,” said Matias.

Lena Leal, scoops salsa into plastic containers before curbside orders pile up.
Keren Carrión
/
KERA
Lena Leal is dressed up in Christmas attire. She scoops salsa into plastic containers before curbside orders pile up.

Lena said to-go businesses are pandemic-friendly. While they saw others try to offer to-go or partner with delivery food options as a last resort, Lena said that for their customers this was just the norm. She hopes that will stay true throughout the pandemic.

For her, the shop is a place where people gather and create community. They know most of their clients by name. This year, she will take the business over from her father. She will be the first woman to run things since Elvira Leal, the founder herself.

“I would go to my parents' house every night with totals and things like that for the end of the day and I would be laughing because I cannot believe this. And my dad would say: ‘How can you not believe it? We’ve been open for 70 years. Everyone knows that our light is always on,” said Lena.

Got a tip? Alejandra Martinez is a Report For America corps member and writes about the economic impact of COVID-19 on marginalized communities for KERA News. Email Alejandra at amartinez@kera.org. You can follow Alejandra on Twitter @_martinez_ale.

KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gifttoday. Thank you.

Alejandra Martinez is a reporter for KERA and The Texas Newsroom through Report for America (RFA). She's covering the impact of COVID-19 on underserved communities and the city of Dallas.