Los Ortega’s takes its pupusas to the streets with food truck

CEDAR RAPIDS — Since the 1990s, the Ortega family has had a hand in Eastern Iowa’s limited supply of pupusas — the thick corn tortillas stuffed to the gills with beans, meat and cheese before being fried on a griddle.

After working a full shift at a West Liberty meat packing plant, Maria Ortega would come home with a list of orders for fellow co-workers. Around 1 or 2 a.m., she would rise to make them. By 3 a.m., she’d rope in her daughter, Kathy, to help cook orders.

Later in the morning, she would go to work early enough to distribute a cooler full of pupusas to her third shift and first shift co-workers as they clocked in and out. A single mother of three, her heritage from El Salvador became a way to get ahead.

“That was the routine for years,” said Kathy Ortega, who started serving as Maria’s “right hand” around age 12.

  Buy Photo

For Maria Ortega, now 69, the hustle never stopped. But her dream of owning a restaurant of some sort never came to fruition.

“It seemed like every time we tried, something would happen,” Kathy Oretega said. “So we let it go for a long time.”

Until now.

Food truck celebrates first year

After making pupusas for over 50 years — more than 30 of them in Iowa — the dream is slowly coming to fruition.

For most of those years, the family’s Salvadoran cuisine was exclusive to meat packing plant workers in Muscatine County. Several years ago, it was introduced to Cedar Rapids at Festival Latino when the owner of Villa’s Patio, where Kathy Oretega worked part-time, invited the family to serve their food with his.

  Buy Photo

This month, Los Ortega’s food truck celebrated a full year serving Linn County and giving customers more consistent access to Salvadoran cuisine.

And this time, decades after learning the family craft, Maria’s kids — Kathy, Robert Hernandez and Will Ortega — are more enthusiastic participants in carrying on the Central American tradition.

What are pupusas?

The savory staple, typically passed through generations from mothers to daughters, is unique among Latino cuisine.

Derived from the word “pupusawa,” which means “to puff up,” or “inflate,” they’ve been linked to the Pipil tribes who inhabited the territory of El Salvador. They’re traditionally filled with pork, topped with salsa and served alongside a vinegar-based slaw of cabbage, carrots, oregano and salt.

  Buy Photo

Since learning to make them around age 12, the product matriarch Maria Ortega makes by hand today is the product of decades of evolution through her life. Today, her pupusas stand out for a few reasons, both in Iowa and abroad.

For one, they’re huge — perhaps two or three times the size of a typical serving at other pupuserias in Iowa. With an emphasis on quality control, Los Ortega’s takes pride in making each bite a mouthful of beans, cheese and meat.

The pork alone has taken on a proprietary seasoning blend that Maria Oretega learned through experience. In addition to their sheer size, Kathy said the luscious interior of each handheld meal tends to be a little puffier with an even, golden brown from the griddle.

Starting at $5, the menu includes vegetarian options — cheese, beans and cheese or spinach and cheese. But the real star of their offerings is the “kiko” style, which adds a thick layer of fried cheese for an extra $2.

  Buy Photo

“Once they try it, they’re hooked,” said Will Ortega.

The challenge, unlike dozens of restaurants slinging tacos around the city, is gaining familiarity.

A family enterprise

Today, Los Ortega’s food truck is the only pupuseria in Cedar Rapids. The last brick-and-mortar restaurant to serve them, Rosy’s, closed in July 2022 after a brief stint on 16th Avenue SW.

For Maria Ortega, seeing the family tradition passed on has been a joy. But watching others enjoy her recipe has given her a new sense of happiness and pride in her culture.

Her children, some of whom are having children of their own, want to carry the torch.

  Buy Photo

Robert Hernandez and Kathy Ortega, who run the food truck together most weeks, juggle the appearances with their full-time jobs. They’ve diversified their menu slightly with horchata rice drinks and La Chona, a recipe inspired by Robert’s wife that puts a twist on Tres Leches cake.

Eventually, he has hopes to make this job his full time job. In addition to diversifying the menu with more specials over time, he hopes to eventually bring in flavors from his Mexican heritage, like the traditional concha bread that’s big on his dad’s side.

“People are just surprised. I don’t think they realize the flavors (they’re going to get) when it comes alive,” Robert Hernandez said. “People want something original, but outside the box as well.”

  Buy Photo

Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.