Nomadic writer, consultant and mom Sunny Cooper waits eagerly with her 12-year-old son and dog in her car in a Shell station’s gravel parking lot. There is not much to look at. To most people, the lot Cooper is parked on is just a gas station off Highway 9 with a nursery behind it, but it's the shiny metal taco truck parked just on the edge that makes this particular lot so special.
Cooper, who consistently travels from Oklahoma to California, makes a point to stop by this unlikely location every time she's in town.
“We eat at a lot of taco trucks from here to California and this is one of the best by far,” Cooper said.
El Taco Loco is Norman’s hidden gem and attracts people from the area, thanks to the taco truck's quick service and dedication to authentic Mexican food. The family behind the service makes El Taco Loco special. For the past six years, owner Laura Martinez and her husband have made the business a family affair.
No one in Martinez’s family has ever owned a business, but after working in the restaurant industry full-time she and her husband were tired of working for others and wanted to work for themselves. So they came up with a plan, Martinez said.
“One day my husband came up to me and said, ‘Let’s go make something new for Norman.’ ... And we came up with the idea for a taco stand because they were very popular in Mexico,” she said.
Martinez has made a point to serve good tacos and use recipes that her family and most families in Mexico use, she said. Her tacos, for example, consist of fresh vegetables and meats on small corn tortillas with black beans rather than flour tortillas with refried beans.
Martinez's parents came to the United States from Mexico in search of better opportunities. Her sister Dulce has loved seeing Martinez's use of their culture to bring success to the family, she said.
“I’m glad this business has brought more benefits than not,” she said. “I feel like it’s also helped spread Mexican culture here in Norman.”
After purchasing a truck and facing some difficulties with acquiring permits from the City of Norman, The Greenhouse Inc., where Martinez’s husband worked, agreed to let the family keep their truck in its parking lot, Martinez’s younger sister Dulce said.
At first the Martinez family’s only customers were friends. The truck's location next to the highway and lack of other food trucks to compete for business in Norman soon made its fare more popular, Dulce said. Now the name El Taco Loco has gained some recognition around town.
Martinez and her husband couldn’t do it on their own, she said. Since they first opened up shop in 2011, they have received help from her immediate and extended family.
“We have a lot of family — eight sisters and five brothers and a lot of cousins — so everybody helps,” Martinez said.
Thanks to El Taco Loco’s success, Martinez and her family have been able to sustain themselves and no longer live check-to-check. They have even been able to financially assist her husband’s and her own extended family, according to Dulce.
Throughout the first few years, Martinez and her sister would start prepping at 6 a.m. and would leave at 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. the next day after the rest of the work was done, Martinez said. Dulce and some of her other siblings would take over the afternoon shift and have since taken on the bulk of the work, along with their cousins, creating closer bonds between both immediate and extended family, Dulce said.
One of the cousins who often works with Dulce, Daisy Deloera, travels from Stillwater, Oklahoma, two days a week so she can not only have a chance to work but see her family as well, Deloera said.
“We were close before I started working here, but once I started working (me and Dulce) became closer,” Deloera said. “They say it’s not a good idea because you know something could go wrong and it could affect the whole family ... but it’s never been a problem. ... I like it better than having to go somewhere totally new and having to meet new people and stuff.”
Since almost all of Martinez’s extended family lives in Norman, keeping close and supporting one another has influenced the different families’ lives, Deloera said.
“To me family’s really important,” she said.
Having this business in the family has changed its dynamics, too. For example, Dulce feels that working at El Taco Loco throughout middle school and high school has given her a sense of independence and has helped her afford items ranging from everyday necessities like food and clothes to the tuition and fees she'll need to pay when she attends OU next year.
At the end of the day, Martinez wants to make sure she gives something back to Norman and her family.
“I want to give something for my sons and daughters, and that brings my family — everybody — together to make something,” Martinez said.
