‘Taco Aunt’ origin story requires fascination
Tio’s Tacos translates to “Uncle’s Tacos,” as I noted in my recent column on the Riverside restaurant. That prompts reader Roger Kessinger to bring up Taco Tia, the local chain whose name means “Taco Aunt.”
Uncle’s Tacos at least means something, since owner Martín Sanchez’ nickname is Uncle, given to him in childhood because he was a leader. But Taco Aunt?
No aunt was involved, and Taco Aunt wasn’t the original choice, as Gustavo Arellano wrote in “Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America.”
When Glen Bell was
preparing to open a Mexican restaurant on San Bernardino’s Baseline Street in 1954, an art student conceptualized a justMexican-enough look and suggested as a name La Tapatía, a reference to women from Guadalajara.
“Bell’s business partner vetoed the suggestion, arguing it was too ethnic, and suggested the nonsense Taco-Tia (‘Taco Aunt’), which he felt was easier to pronounce,” Arellano wrote.
Taco-Tia it became, and later Taco Tia, no hyphen.
Bell, whose name may be familiar, had had a couple of previous burger restaurants that sold tacos as well, starting with Bell’s Burgers, directly south of San Bernardino’s Mitla Cafe.
Bell famously learned the taco basics from Mitla: fried shells with beef, cheese, lettuce and tomatoes. He began selling his version in late 1951, using pre-fried shells to speed things up, across the street at Bell’s Burgers. It’s now an Amapola Rico Taco, by the way, and Mitla is still in business.
After success with a couple of other burger stands that also sold tacos, Bell got the courage to drop the burgers and specialize in Mexican food with Taco-Tia, Arellano wrote. The peripatetic Bell soon left to start El Taco and then Der Wienerschnitzel, turning the latter over to a former Taco-Tia employee, John Galardi.
And in 1962, Bell struck paydirt — or maybe a gusher of red sauce — in Downey with Taco Bell.
Back to Taco Tia. Kessinger remembers locations in Riverside — one on
14th, the other on Van Buren — with a home base in San Bernardino on Hunts Lane, where food was cooked and then trucked out to the tiny restaurants.
“And,” he concludes dryly, bringing things back to the Uncle’s Tacos/Taco Aunt joke, “that’s the history of the previous taco relative.”
But wait, there’s more. By 2010, Taco Tia was down to three Inland restaurants, in San Bernardino, Yucaipa and Redlands. Now only Redlands is left.
I drove out to 1004 Orange St. last week for a cheap lunch. It’s been years since I ate a taco in a sturdy U-shaped shell with ground beef filling, shredded lettuce and grated cheese, with a thin tomato slice on top.
But it was strangely satisfying, like being transported back in time to my Midwestern childhood of eating at Taco John’s. The receipt, by the way, gives the restaurant’s name as “Taco Tia 1” — and only.
To sum up, Redlands has a taco aunt and Riverside has a taco uncle. Is there a taco niece and nephew (Taco Sobrina y Sobrino) out there? Maybe a taco cousin (Taco Prima/ Taco Primo)? We need to expand this taco family tree.
Tortilla tourney
While we’re on the subject of Mexican food — and why do we ever leave it? — KCRW’s annual Tortilla Tournament is back, with judges rating tortillas in a college-basketballstyle bracket.
And this year’s fourth annual tourney is keeping it COVID-simple by starting with 64 tortillerias that have competed before and advanced at least one bracket.
That means San Bernardino’s Mitla Cafe (corn tortillas) and Riverside’s Anchos Southwest Grill (flour tortillas), which both did well in 2020, are automatically in contention.
The winners will be announced Oct. 10 at Smorgasburg, the DTLA openair food market. May the best tortilla win (as long as it’s from the IE)!
brIEfly
The vertical neon sign at Mitchell’s Plumbing, believed to have been part of downtown Upland since the 1950s, had continued blinking “plumbing,” “heating” and “cooling” in sequence long after the business closed in 2019. As a new operator formulates plans for the building, the sign recently came down. “It’ll go back up,” reports Linda Trawnik, president of the downtown merchants’ group. “The new tenant will put their name on it, but the sign is supposed to be saved.” If it does return, we can blink back a tear of gratitude.