At Tortilleria La Familiar in San Jose, they serve a taste of home. Each warm, fresh tortilla comes with a side of nostalgia.
“I think it’s more the smell. A lot of people always comment on the smell like I’m standing in line and I can smell it, and it just throws me back to when I was little living in Mexico,” says Gishelle Alvarez, one of the owners of Tortilleria La Familiar.
But unlike Mexico, tortillas like these are hard to come by in the Bay Area. Not many are making them like this: from masa, to machine, to your hand in a matter of minutes.
“There’s some in the Valley. Right now, in the Bay Area, we are the only ones, I believe,” she says referring to her truck.
That’s why the Alvarez family launched their business: to fill the void. But it wasn’t easy.It required special equipment built in Mexico, but …