KALAMAZOO, MI — Maria-Teresa Hernandez has been selling tamales for 12 years — dishing them out door-to-door, to construction workers she would see on the street and filling advance orders received by email. In 2020, she hit the road.
Now, flanked by family members, Hernandez is busy selling her locally famous tamales, birria tacos, burritos, quesadillas, horchatas and more out the window of a food truck she purchased in 2019, after years of saving money. Eventually, she hopes to have a fleet of food trucks.
Related: Lunchtime Live! and Concerts in the Park return to Kalamazoo in June
At this time, Teresa’s Kitchen is on just one set of wheels. Wheels that can be seen parked at Lunchtime Live! in Bronson Park on Fridays, at the Kalamazoo Farmers Market on Saturdays and various other locations throughout the region from week to week. They will travel to graduation parties, weddings and can be spotted at various food truck rallies.
While other options are plentiful at Teresa’s Kitchen, what gave Hernandez her start was undoubtedly her tamales.
What sets them apart, she said, is the vegan and vegetarian options and the fact that she doesn’t use lard. She’s also known for her chicken, pork and beef tamales.
Maria-Teresa Hernandez, her husband Reynaldo and their daughter Teresa, 12, pose for a portrait in front of their food truck Teresa’s Kitchen before the start of Lunchtime Live! at Bronson Park in Kalamazoo, Michigan on Friday, June 11, 2021. (Joel Bissell | MLive.com)Joel Bissell | MLive.com
When she fist began selling her tamales, it was out of a love for cooking and a need to make ends meet.
Three months pregnant with her oldest child, son Angel, Hernandez moved to Kalamazoo 20 years ago from Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico — a city of 520,000 people on the southern bank of the Rio Grande, directly across the border from Brownsville, Texas.
“I was 19 years old and I was pregnant and I wanted a better life for my son,” she said.
So she and her husband Reynaldo moved north. Hernandez took a job at McDonald’s, then Wendy’s. But after eight years and with her third child, daughter Teresa, ready to be born and her middle child, Ruby, still not old enough for school, she made the decision to be a stay-at-home mom.
“We didn’t have enough income from my husband and needed money to survive, so after I was not working at Wendy’s anymore, I began making tamales and started going door to door,” she said. “I’d sell them everywhere. I’d knock doors, sell them at offices, schools, everywhere.
“I’d see construction guys and ask them if they’d want to buy some tamales.”
Over the years, the word spread and demand grew. Regulars would collect orders from friends, family members and coworkers and send her weekly emails. Some days, she would be up at 2 a.m., making tamales to have them ready to deliver at lunchtime. Some weeks, she made as many as 500 at one time.
She never turned down an order, and began socking away money to purchase a food truck. After purchasing the truck and getting it up to code, she hit the road in late May 2020, and also began catering events and attending food truck rallies.
Summer means the busy season for food trucks, and Hernandez will make the circuit with her husband and her daughters working alongside her. Her son, Angel, isn’t much help since all he does is try the food, daughter Ruby said.
Ruby, her mother said proudly, will be the first Hernandez to graduate from an American high school.
To contact Teresa’s, call 269-254-4079, reach out through the website or visit Teresa’s Kitchen on Facebook. Follow Teresa’s Kitchen on Facebook to see where to find her next.
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Backyard Broadway, music and a play in the park top Farmers Alley lineup for summer
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