Owning a burrito joint isn’t all fun and games
Jose Hernandez, who owns Jalapenos Taqueria, is always grinning from behind the cash register, and lately there’s a lot to smile about. The Laurel Street taqueria’s affordable burritos are some of the tastiest downtown. And the business is preparing to do a remodel this year, when it will move the front counter back to make more room for seating. Hernandez bought the restaurant two years ago.
How much work goes into making chicken mole?
JOSE HERNANDEZ: Mole has almost 20 ingredients, and don’t forget anything, because if you do, the flavor is going to change. It takes an hour, because after you use the blender, you have to wait 20, 25 minutes. It’s not easy. If you want to do it faster, it’s not going to work. The flavor is going to be different. The color is going to be different.
Is it common to mix soy sauce and orange juice, as you do in your Chicken Nitza?
No, sometimes you have to try new things. Like the downtown veggie [burrito]. I was thinking people want salads, but we don’t have salads. We sell burritos. We have to make a burrito with salad inside.
That downtown burrito is new, right?
Yeah, that’s new stuff—the downtown, the flautas, the wet burrito with green salsa. The green salsa is so good. We kept the mole, the Nitza and the [chicken] primavera, because it has a lot of history.
You’re always smiling. Do you ever get stressed out here?
Yeah, to be honest. It’s so much stress right here. If you feel bad or you don’t want to go to work, you just call, right? Maybe you were going to say ‘I’m sick,’ and you don’t go. Here, you don’t have a choice. You have to come. No one else is going to come except for you and do your things, or pay your bills, or pay taxes. It’s more stress. It’s more time. Sometimes I say, ‘What should I do?’ But it’s better, because you’re your own boss, and no one is going to fire you or say ‘You have to move go to that city.’ That’s a good thing.
206 Laurel St., Santa Cruz, 457-0159. PHOTO: Owner Jose Hernandez with Jalapenos’ chicken mole. CHIP SCHEUER
