Taqueria El Tacorrey food truck
Michel Zajur’s family opened La Siesta in 1972 in a diner car on Jefferson Davis Highway. At that time, cilantro and jalapenos weren’t readily available in Richmond groceries. The Zajur family, hailing from Zacatecas, Mexico, sourced the produce they needed to make traditional Central Mexican dishes — and some Americanized versions locals were more comfortable with — from Washington, D.C. Beloved for 35 years before closing in 2009, Richmond’s first Mexican restaurant made quite an impact.
“We were more than a restaurant, we were a community hub,” says Zajur, who founded the Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in 2000. “I watched Midlothian Turnpike grow from us being the only Latin restaurant to one of many.”
Today Richmond is home to residents from all over Latin and Central America. “When I came here from Mexico, there was a relative that helped my parents,” Zajur says. “[My father] couldn’t speak English. I didn’t intend to start a chamber of commerce, but … it grew out of helping people at my restaurant.”
Spicy chicken tacos from El Tacorrey
From the beginning, the Zajurs were cultural ambassadors, inviting students from elementary schools to the restaurant for Mexican history lessons and hosting Richmond’s inaugural ¿Qué Pasa? Festival in 1994 in the restaurant’s parking lot on Cinco de Mayo. La Siesta also introduced the famed creamy dip known as “white sauce” that’s still served alongside tortilla chips at other restaurants.
Since the Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s debut, Richmond has witnessed many changes, Zajur says. In the early aughts, there was a Salvadoran wave of restaurants and grocers opening on Midlothian Turnpike, including one of the first, Arco Iris. Besides sustenance, some of the grocery stores provide services such as bill payments and money wire or check cashing options, plus Mexican and South American pastries, hard-to-find staples, produce, and specialty cuts of meat that offer a taste of home.
Monica Chavez, co-owner of the restaurant and market La Milpa on Hull Street, moved to Chesterfield nine years ago from Puebla, Mexico. “The Latin community is strengthening — more people are getting their own businesses, especially in construction and grocery,” she says. “We [at La Milpa] have four food trucks that sell at construction sites. We are proud of the hard-working families. As a community, we are happy to have a seat at the table.”
Chavez says interest in traditional Mexican cuisine has also grown. “People come in to try tongue and tripe tacos,” she says. At La Milpa, the “Carnitas Show” is truly an authentic experience. Each week, a whole pig is cooked in the middle of the dining room, and diners can walk past the bubbling cauldron to select their favorite part for tacos: skin, ear, stomach or, as Chavez prefers, the leaner cuts. “The pot is beautiful,” she says. “People see us through our food.”
